It's party time

My friends and I decided to throw a party to the couple soon to be married in India. Pooja asked me some time ago about a possibility of baking Black Forrest Cake with/for her and so I took it as the central theme of my kitchen effort for this event. Apart from that we decided to keep it German friendly, by having pickled herring, sausages in sauerkraut, pretzels and rye bread.

The rye bread was sourdough, since I wanted it to be more rye-i than other basic recipe from the book. Sourdough starter was fed with rye flour and although it did not look particularly alive even after 12 hours, the smell was fantastic. The dough had to wait in the fridge, which I do not like so much with rye sourdough, but I had a good feeling this time it will work fine. The next day I just let it warm up and shaped a battard and let it rise, which with the rye starter was noticeably faster process. I cut down the caraway seeds, one tablespoon is plenty. And although it does not look perfect on the cut, it is very flavorfull and with just the right amount of hard/chewy crust. 

 

The pretzels were relatively easy, only the dough is pretty stiff one, only some 51% hydration, and therefore it was a bit tough to knead. On this one I would actually appreciate having a mechanical help. I did a test batch the evening before, which was supposed to yield 12 small ball-shaped breads, but I made 4 medium pretzels instead. The stiffness of the dough helped keeping the shape and dipping in hot soda solution was therefore a no-problem task. Next time I will try the lye solution, though. When I made the next batch, I needed at least 12 pretzels and therefore I trippled the recipe. It was just fine and since I used hotter soda solution and let the pretzels sit in in for about half minute each, they seem to be a bit shinier. I had help with these and it is fun to make them. They are chewy and to me taste just fine.

Le cake was a bit of project. Cherries were marinating in brandy-syrup for about a week, I had enough chocolate and eggs and cream, so I was ready to roll. The recipe called for a half batch for the cake itself, but I baked the full one just in case and since I  was supposed to cut away the top and bottom layer afterward, I wanted to have a space for error. I ended trimming the tops and bottoms and using the whole middle parts as they were, having more syrup than called for was a good idea since one sprinkles it on the cake before covering with the frosting. The frosting gave me a bit of headache. I opted for a light ganache, which is cream melted with chocolate, whipped together. I guess it was due to the higher fat content and good quality chocolate (only cocoa butter in it), I overwhipped it exactly as the book said... and so I re-melted and cooled again and repeated ... and I overwhipped again, this time I knew it was due to not melting it hot enough earlier, since the granular structure formed right away just by cooling down. Third time is a charm and I was very very careful and it was just fine. The ganache was not perfectly smooth visually, but melted in the mouth like a chocolate, yet the sweetness was the one of bittersweet chocolate. The bottom cake layer gets covered with this and cherries are put on top and next cake layer gets seated in and soaked in syrup and covered with the ganache again. Cool for 4 hours in the fridge covered with foil and then make rosettes with cream and put cherry into each.... and the top was supposed to get sprinkled with shaved chocolate, which I forgot in the fridge, eactually, but the ganache was chocolate-y enough anyway. It is a pretty darn good cake. Maybe next time I'd do just the stabilized cream, as in the original recipe. If there is next time.