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The famous Black Forest gateau

This layered cream cake with its unique colour combination of black, red and white became popular throughout Germany in the 1930s and later spread to the rest of the world. The key components are layers of chocolate sponge soaked in Kirsch schnapps, a cherry filling, cream or butter cream, and cherries and chocolate flakes for decoration. Apart from the obvious assumption that it comes from the Black Forest, there are many other theories on how the cake got its name.

It is possible that the cake got its name from the traditional costume worn by women in the Black Forest: the dress is black just like the chocolate flakes, the blouse is white like the cream and the hat has red pom-poms that look just like cherries.
The patissier Josef Keller claimed to have invented the cake in 1915 in the Agner café in Bad Godesberg, which was very popular in its day. However, this has yet to be proven beyond all doubt. According to research carried out by Tübingen town archivist Udo Rauch, more and more evidenceis pointing to the Tübingen master patissier Erwin Hildenbrand having invented the Black Forest gateau in the spring of 1930 at Café Walz in Tübingen.

Record
On 1 August 1999, the world‘s biggest Black Forest gateau measuring 5.10 metres in diameter was produced in Enzklösterle in Baden-Württemberg. A total of 340 litres of cream, 28 kilos of flour, 95 kilos of cherries, 1,120 eggs and 60 litres of genuine Black Forest Kirsch schnapps were used to create this record-breaking masterpiece. The 4,500 slices of cake tasted so good that they sold out within two hours. The largest Black Forest gateau in the world was entered into the Guinness Book of Records in 2001.

Specialities from the Eifel Region in Germany