Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte is a German torte that layers chocolate sponge with white cream and sweet-tart cherries. Its defining feature is the aroma of kirsch, a clear cherry spirit. The tartness of the fruit, the softness of the cream and the aroma of the spirit are all built up on the chocolate sponge.

The name Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte means “Black Forest cherry torte.” It is also called Black Forest cake in English and forêt-noire in French.

The Tartness of Cherries and the Aroma of Kirsch

Tart sour cherries bring a sweet-sour note to the cream and chocolate. The other key element is Kirschwasser, or kirsch for short, a clear spirit made by fermenting cherries and then distilling them.

Unlike red, sweet cherry liqueur, kirsch leaves the aroma of the fruit and the flavor of a distilled spirit in the sponge and cream.

Not Always Made with Fresh Cream Alone

The 2025 edition of the German guidelines for baked goods and confectionery lists a clearly noticeable kirsch flavor as a characteristic of this torte.

At the same time, the composition allows for variation. The cream need not be fresh cream alone; buttercream, or a combination of the two, is also permitted. The sponge may be a light or dark biscuit or Viennese sponge. For dark versions, cocoa powder amounting to at least 3% of the unbaked batter is to be used. There are also versions with a thin shortcrust base.

The look commonly seen today, with dark sponge and white fresh cream, is one widely loved version within this range.

However, national confectionery guidelines are separate from the European scheme that registers a single specification as a “traditional speciality.”

According to the 2014–15 annual report of the Central Association of the German Bakers’ Trade, objections were raised to the renewed application to register this torte in 2014, including over the specification of Black Forest kirsch, and Germany’s Federal Office for Agriculture and Food did not approve the application.

Fruit for the Cake, and Fruit That Becomes Spirit

The cherries used to make kirsch are not necessarily the same variety as the sour cherries layered into the cake. In the Eggenertal valley in the Markgräflerland, on the western side of the Black Forest, sweet cherries with deep color and aroma are grown and used not only for jam and juice but also for kirsch.

The orchards where cherry trees blossom in spring are also tied to the local agriculture that produces the aroma of this cake.

Kirsch in general is also not the same as the spirit sold under the name “Schwarzwälder Kirschwasser.” The latter is made in the Black Forest and specified surrounding areas by fermenting and distilling cherries from that region.

The work of fermenting and distilling local fruit underpins the aroma of Black Forest kirsch.

Thickening the Juice, and Soaking the Sponge with Spirit Separately

A cocoa biscuit is baked, cooled thoroughly and sliced horizontally. The cherries are drained, and the reserved juice is cooked with sugar and thickened. Some methods use a cake glaze setting agent, while others use starch.

The fruit is then returned to the juice and kirsch is added. Once this has cooled thoroughly, the liquid between the pieces of fruit holds together and is less likely to run into the soft layer of cream.

The kirsch used in the fruit layer and the kirsch soaked into the sponge play different roles. The spirit added to the fruit layer lends aroma to the cherries, while the spirit soaked into the sponge gives it a moist texture as well as aroma.

Rather than pouring all the fruit’s cooking liquid onto the sponge, the moisture of the fruit, sponge and cream is adjusted separately before the layers are assembled.

Layering the fruit while it is still warm would loosen the whipped cream, so the fruit is cooled thoroughly first. Fruit and cream are spread over the bottom layer of sponge, more sponge and cream are layered on top, and the outside is covered.

The piped cream on top, the garnish cherries and the chocolate shavings are a finish that repeats the three colors of the cut surface on the outside. After finishing, the cake is chilled so the layers can settle.

Another Base Beneath the Soft Layers

Some methods pair the softness of the sponge and cream with the crisp bite of a thin base. The Mürbeteig used for this base is a shortcrust dough, different from biscuit.

In a 2021 example posted by the distance learning department of Tsuji Culinary Institute, a thinly baked Mürbeteig is spread with jam and layered with chocolate sponge, cherries, chocolate cream and kirsch cream. The crumbly texture of the base contrasts with the soft sponge and cream layered above it.

In the same example, cherry compote is piped from a piping bag in two rings, and cream is filled in between them. Unlike compositions in which the fruit is spread over the whole surface, this makes fruit and cream appear alternately when the cake is cut.

Depending on how many layers the sponge is divided into, whether chocolate is added to the cream and whether a shortcrust base is used, the cross-section and mouthfeel of the same cake change.

The Name of the Forest, and the Red Hat Comparison

Theories about the origin of the name include one that links the dark chocolate to the darkness of the forest, one that centers on kirsch from the Black Forest region, and one that likens the combination of black, white and red to traditional costume.

In the costume theory, the black dress, the white blouse and the Bollenhut, a hat with large red wool pompoms, match the colors of the cake. However, this hat belongs to the costume of three towns and districts in the Black Forest. Red pompoms indicate an unmarried woman and black pompoms a married one, and it was not a costume representing the whole region.

Which of these comparisons gave the cake its name remains unknown.

Farmhouse Cherry Desserts and a Pastry Chef’s Notebook

The southern Black Forest also has desserts that combine cooked cherries with cream and kirsch. According to a surviving tradition, farm women cooked sweet cherries and sour cherries left over from the harvest, let them cool on plates, and served them with cream skimmed from milk drawn in the evening. Some farmers are said to have added kirsch as well.

This story traces the torte’s forerunner to the farmhouse table, where fruit, milk and spirit were brought together.

In the notebook of pastry chef Karl Muffler, dating from around 1915–30, there is a torte in which a baked sponge is placed on a base, layered with cherries and kirsch cream, and decorated with pieces of chocolate. The year of the individual entry is unknown, but the form with multiple layers of cream and fruit survives in the work of a pastry chef of the early 20th century.

The Keller Family Recipe and Differing Memories of Its Invention

The family of Josef Keller, a pastry chef who ran a shop in Radolfzell, has handed down a recipe (ingredient proportions and method) bearing this name, dating from around 1927–28. The recipe records not only the name but also how the layers are assembled: sour cherries set with agar are placed on a shortcrust base, two baked sponge layers are layered with cream and kirsch syrup, and the outside is covered with kirsch buttercream and chocolate.

Compared with today’s cross-section centered on fresh cream, both the way fat is used and the way the fruit is set are different.

There is also a tradition that Josef Keller invented the torte in 1915. However, the explanation he himself sent to a trade journal in 1975 differed from the story of a single person completing it at one time.

According to that explanation, the form with cherries and cream placed on a shortcrust base came first, and Viennese-style baked sponge and kirsch were combined with it later. He also believed that similar cakes had been baked in the Black Forest before.

In 1982, after his father’s death, his son Karl, speaking in the Swiss magazine Das Gelbe Heft, said that his father first made it in 1915 at Café Agner in Bad Godesberg. According to this story, he added a base to cream and cherries so he could quickly serve something sweet to students from Bonn who arrived suddenly in large groups.

The article was reprinted the same year in a German confectionery trade journal and later led to coverage of the 75th anniversary in 1990. The father’s own explanation and the family’s recollection differ on whether the cake should be treated as the creation of one person.

Erwin Hildenbrand of Café Walz in Tübingen is also said to have presented this cake in 1930, and it is said to have spread to southern Württemberg after a pastry chefs’ convention in 1932.

It is also possible that the method of layering fruit, spirit and cream developed gradually through the work of pastry chefs in various places.

Memories of this cake from before the war also survive at Café Falk in Frankfurt. A later biographical account records that Walter Falk, born in 1926, well remembered the cakes made at the family café run by his father and uncle, especially Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte.

This recollection shows that a torte by this name was part of the work of city cafés, not only in the Black Forest region.

A Walnut Dome in a 1934 Confectionery Book

An example in the 1934 book 250 Confectioneries: Their Specialties and How They Came About differs from the flat-topped cake commonly seen today. The base is a hazelnut Mürbeteig, topped with cherry jam and a walnut sponge. Chocolate buttercream is then piped in a ring, kirsch-flavored fresh cream and another walnut sponge are layered on, and a mold is placed over the cake as it chills, giving it a dome shape.

The surface is covered with fresh cream, grated chocolate and powdered sugar, but there are no garnish cherries. The present-day look, with red cherries arranged on top, is not shared by cakes made under this name in every era.

This version, with nut sponges and two kinds of cream, shows a range in this cake that cannot be seen if one thinks only in terms of chocolate sponge and fresh cream.

Wartime Cream Shortages and Postwar Spread

In September 1915, during the First World War, Germany restricted the use of whole milk and cream in commercial baking and confectionery, the retail sale of whipped cream, and other uses. The regulations allowed exemptions, and cream did not disappear uniformly from home baking.

Under these ingredient conditions, there were also limits on making cakes with thick layers of fresh cream. Some pastry chefs’ recipes from the late 1920s used buttercream, which differs from the fresh-cream-centered versions commonly seen today.

During the Second World War, too, the ingredients for this cake became scarce. Walter Poganietz, founder of a confectionery museum, has said that whipped cream could not be obtained at the time.

Making a cake with thick white layers required not only mastering the technique but also being able to obtain dairy products.

The postwar resumption and changes in preparation can also be seen at one workshop in the Black Forest region. At the Weisser family bakery in Gremmelsbach, dark bread was the core of the work during the war. After 1945, the bakery resumed making baked goods such as Lebkuchen, and in time tortes were also sold in the shop.

The shop’s Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, which became its specialty, also went through a time when the cream used was changed to fresh cream. Cakes bearing the Black Forest name were remade in workshops of the same region after the period of scarcity, and the preparation of the white layer changed as well.

Adolf Heckmann’s 1949 vocational textbook The Young Pastry Chef also lists Black Forest torte as one of 15 representative cakes. Poganietz recalls that demand grew after the war, and Claus Schäfer of Café Schäfer links the cake’s popularity to the growth of tourism in the 1950s and 1960s.

Workshop production resumed, the cake became part of pastry chefs’ training, and it spread as a local specialty eaten while traveling.

Tasting It at Cafés While Traveling, Learning How It Is Made in Workshops

In the Black Forest, the torte is still a local specialty eaten at cafés and hotels. Places such as Café Zimmermann in Todtmoos and Café am Eck in Baiersbronn also offer courses where guests can learn how to make it.

These courses are presented as a chance not only to eat the finished cake but also to learn the work of soaking the sponge with spirit and layering fruit and cream.

Todtnauberg also hosts the Schwarzwälder Kirschtorten Festival, devoted to this cake. Versions by pastry chefs and other makers come together under a single name, and outstanding tortes are selected.

The cake’s continuation as a regional sweet is reflected not only in the stories about its inventor but also in today’s cafés and events like this one.

Introduction Through American Cookbooks and Department Stores

Tracing its introduction in the United States, Mimi Sheraton’s cookbook published in 1963 includes the torte served at Café Harzer in Herrenalb. It consists of two chocolate sponge layers soaked with kirsch, filled with cherries and chocolate buttercream, and topped with kirsch-scented fresh cream. Even in the recipe presented to American readers, buttercream and fresh cream coexisted in a single torte.

The following year, in May 1964, the New York department store Stern’s advertised a demonstration of Black Forest cake by Klaus Rimberg, pastry chef at Tavern on the Green. In this way, a cake whose production had resumed in German workshops also came to be introduced in the United States through cookbooks and department store events.

Spirits and Fruit That Change from Place to Place

Even this cake, tied to the regions where kirsch is produced, changed its ingredients abroad and came to be loved by local people. In Priya Krishna’s 2024 reporting, Natasha Ragan, a food content creator from Trinidad, said that because of the rum-laced versions she ate from shops as a child, she had thought rum was the original spirit.

A cookbook author from Pakistan also presents a method that uses cherry brandy flavoring locally, and in Singapore there are recipes that replace expensive cherries with blueberry jam. Some regions make it without alcohol, and abroad, versions without the kirsch flavor described in the German guidelines are also loved under the same name.

On the cake’s spread to Chile, a 2025 on-site report by SWR visited pastry chef Gerhard Kalpchen, who emigrated there in 1961. His own experience, that sour cherries were hard to obtain at first but later came to be grown in southern Chile, shows that bringing the cake there required not only the movement of pastry chefs but also the work of sourcing fruit locally.

Although the year it first arrived is unknown, local customers remember it as a cake for birthdays, Christmas and Easter. While the name and the three-color appearance were passed on, the spirit, the fruit and the sweetness changed to suit each place.

Glossary