March 28 recognizes a food holiday known as National Black Forest Cake Day.
- Black Forest cake is the English name for the German dessert Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte, meaning “Black Forest cherry torte.”
- Most often, the Black Forest cake is made of several layers of chocolate cake with whipped cream and cherries between each layer. The cake is then decorated with whipped cream, maraschino cherries and chocolate shavings.
- In some traditional recipes, sour cherries are used between the layers and a Kirschwasser (a clear liquor distilled from tart cherries) is added to the cake. In the United States, alcohol is usually not used. However, in Germany, the liqueur is a mandatory ingredient. Otherwise, the cake can not legally be sold under the Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte name.
- The cake is named after the specialty liquor (Schwarzwalder Kirschwasser) of the region of the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) mountain range in southwestern Germany.
- The cake is named not directly after the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) mountain range in southwestern Germany but rather from the specialty liquor of that region, known as Schwarzwälder Kirsch(wasser) and distilled from tart cherries.
- Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte was first mentioned in writing in 1934.
- The earliest published written record of Black Forest cake was in 1934, by John Martin Erich Weber, a German confectioner, in his book ‘250 Konditorei-Spezialitäten und wie sie entstehen’, translated in English literally as ‘250 pastry specialties and how they originate’.
- The record for the world’s largest authentic black forest cake, weighing 3000 kg, was set at Europa Park, Germany on 16 July 2006, by K&D Bakery.
- In the history of black forest cake, it was not in the form of a cake but instead as a dessert recipe.
- The forests in “Hansel and Gretel”, “Snow White”, and “Rapunzel” are based on the Black Forest. They are all German fairy tales.
- It has been alleged that confectioner Josef Keller invented the Black Forest cake in 1915, at the Cafe Agner in Bad Godesberg, in Germany, Europe, and while this has been disputed, Keller’s hand written recipe is said to still exist.
- As the cake was discovered in Germany, the land of the black forest, it got the name the black forest cake. Also, because the cake resembled the black forest costume that the local women wore.
- Today, the black forest cake is among the top ten cakes that is famous and loved all around the world
- The name Black Forest comes from the general dark color of the numerous pine trees that grow in this region.
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