Schwarzwälder Kirschtrifle and a bonus cocktail

Now that the cherry bounce I made in May has had several months to mellow out in the bottles, its character has changed greatly. In June, it was very harsh and pretty tart, especially if I ate one of the cherries that had been steeping in the liquor. Now, it's sweeter and has the full flavor of cherries in it, but it still packs a boozy punch.

A boozy punch is exactly what's on order when making a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest Cake). The cherry filling in the traditional German preparation includes a couple shots of Kirschwasser (a schnapps made with cherries), also known as just Kirsch.

This story starts back a couple Saturdays ago, when I decided instead of Kirsch to use my homemade cherry liquor to make a Torte to take to a housewarming party. I also figured it would be something productive to do with the strained-out whiskey-soaked cherries.

I was using a recipe for the cake that I'd never tried before, one that had fewer ingredients than the one in my baking cookbook from Germany and seemed to have a promise of being less dry than the traditional recipe that included almond flour in the cake. I was excited while watching it bake to see it puff up, since it was a cake leavened mostly by beaten egg yolks and whites, and I feared it might fail to rise. I beamed proudly as I pulled the finished cake from the oven, then cried out in wordless shock as the pan slipped from my hands and hit the floor. The cake fell out of the pan and folded in half, leaving a smear of chocolate everywhere it touched.

A few unkind words and a few minutes of cleaning up the floor later, I decided there was nothing else better to do with the quart of whipping cream in my refrigerator, so I'd better get started on a new cake. Another hour later, I was pulling out Cake Number Two at the end of its baking time. It wasn't quite as tall as Cake Number One, but I hoped I could still manage to get two layers out of it.

As it sat on the cooling rack, the cake looked more and more discouraging as the center of it kept sinking. When the time came to cut the layers, it was very clear that the center of the cake was an underbaked, gooey mess that wouldn't have anything to do with layers. I had a two-layer doughnut on my hands with chocolatey sludge for a doughnut hole. Tasty sludge, but not suitable for Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte.

What to do now? The eggs are gone, there's still a quart of whipping cream that needs to go into something for this party, the filling made with whiskey-steeped cherries is ready and waiting, there's not enough time to bake and cool another cake, and the one I've got is fantastic around the outside, but impossible to use the inside. What else uses bits of cake and has pretty layers with fruit and whipped cream? Trifle! The Schwarzwälder Kirschtrifle was born.

Here it is, complete with the garnish of chocolate shavings and chocolate chunks, ready to go to the party. Those who grew up with trifle, please excuse the Pyrex bowl standing in for a proper trifle bowl, which I don't have and never thought I would ever want.

Both layers of cake have cherry filling, I soaked the cake with a bit more cherry bounce, and of course there are thick layers of whipped cream on top of each cherry layer.

This solution to cake disaster was a big hit at the party. This past week, the partying with boozy cherries continued with an experiment to use the leftover cherry juice I had from making the filling and the Kirsch I've had hanging around the house since a trip to Vom Fass in Madison, WI in June but hadn't had occasion to use yet.

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest Cake), a cocktail

1 part Kirschwasser/Kirsch
2 parts Mocha Kahlua (perhaps another chocolate liqueur would work, this is what I had around)
2 parts cherry juice (100 percent tart cherries, and not a juice blend)

Mix Kirsch, Kahlua and juice and serve out into glasses. To finish off just like the traditional cake, garnish each glass with a dollop of whipped cream and sprinkle with chocolate shavings.

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Pork, cabbage, apples, grains: several stews

In August, I taught a class I called "Early Period Cooking Demo: Recipes for 10th Century England" at an SCA event. I've been trying to push myself this year to create recipes that could be appropriate for my 10th Century Saxon/Norse persona and to practice starting and controlling open fires for cooking.

My desire for the class was to offer 1) a demonstration of the ways in which a fire for cooking is maintained differently from a fire for warming a room, 2) a demonstration of different cooking methods known to people in 10th Century England, 3) recipes that could be appropriate to the time and place I'm portraying, a task complicated by the lack of recipe books for this period, 4) recipes I could reproduce on camping outings to reduce my reliance on modern recipes and foods.

The following recipe is influenced by two things: reading about food combinations in Ann Hagen's Bible of early English cooking, Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink: Production, Processing, Distribution and Consumption; and thinking about combinations of foods that would be in season together for a culture that was restricted in dietary choices by seasonal availability of foodstuffs. Bacon is a pork product that can be kept a few months in a cool place after the slaughter of a hog, so it's not tied to only one season. Apples, cabbages and fresh herbs are fall foods known to Anglo-Saxons as well as modern Americans. It's possible that my choice of kale for the later two versions of the stew is more authentic than heading cabbages, but I'm not certain the heading cabbages were unknown to 10th Century England.

Pork, Apple and Cabbage Stew
serves 4-6

1/2 pound wood-smoked bacon or other fresh or preserved pork, chopped
lard or bacon drippings or butter, if needed
1 large or 2 small onions, chopped
1 small green cabbage, cored and chopped
1 pound apples, peeled, cored and chopped
2 to 3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 small sprig fresh rosemary, chopped fine or 1/2 tsp dried rosemary leaves
1/2 cup barley, oat groats or wheat berries
chicken broth or water
salt and pepper to taste

Cook bacon in pot until it starts to crisp, or cook other pork in fat until browned. Skim some fat with a spoon if desired. Add onions and cook in fat until translucent. Add cabbage, apples, grain and herbs, then cover with water or broth and bring to a low boil over open flame. Move pot over to cooler area of fire and simmer with pot covered until the grains are tender. Stir occasionally. Add more water/broth if stew starts to become too thick and sticks to bottom of pot. Season with salt and pepper.

On the first cooking attempt, this stew was tasty. The apples were an interesting sweet contrast to the savory bacon and herbs. It was a little watered down because I added probably twice the amount of broth that would be necessary to keep the grains moist. It may have been more flavorful had I left in the bacon drippings, but I spooned them off to use in making a flatbread for the class.

Later at home, I tried out a similar stew to combine leftover bacon from the class, some rice that had been left from a previous meal, and kale from a friend's garden. Kale is a member of the same family of vegetables as green cabbage, so I figured I couldn't go wrong. The herbs are replaced by cumin, one of my favorite spices.

With this photo, I learn that really good food photographers wait until the stew is done steaming to take the photo so the food shows up clearly. Unlike those really good food photographers, if I let the food cool off first, I have to eat a cold supper.


Pork, Apple and Cabbage Stew play-at-home version
serves 4

1/2 pound hardwood-smoked bacon, chopped
2 small onions, chopped
1 bunch kale (large handful of stems), destemmed and chopped
2 large apples, peeled, cored and chopped
3 cups chicken stock
1 tsp cumin 
1 heaping cup leftover brown rice
salt and pepper to taste

For home stove, never mind the bits in the directions about moving the pot around on the fire.

While camping out this past weekend, I made the stew from memory over our little campfire and added in some fresh radishes from our weekly box from Henry's Farm. Once again, kale from our friends' garden substitutes for green cabbage. Thank you, "vegetable fairies" Viv and Nicole! I didn't chop the bacon in order to keep my cutting board from having both uncooked meat and raw veggies on it. Because I cooked it very crisp, it fell apart into bite-sized chunks as I stirred it around the pot with other ingredients. I forgot to bring onions, so this stew was yet another variant of the original. I left in the bacon grease because there was no other recipe to use it in later. The finished stew needed very little salt.

Pork, Apple and Cabbage Stew another way
serves 3 very hungry people
 
1/2 pound hardwood-smoked bacon
8 small radishes, chopped
2 large apples, cored and chopped, but with peels on
1 pound kale, destemmed and chopped
1/2 cup barley
3 cups chicken stock
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves stripped from stems
freshly ground white peppercorns and salt to taste

Follow directions as in first stew, but leave all the bacon drippings in the pot and omit the step of cooking onions in bacon fat.

Everything tastes better when eaten outside, and this stew is no exception to that rule. On a chilly fall night when dinner wasn't ready until after dark, it warmed me and my two camping companions physically and emotionally from the inside out.
 

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