Swiss black forest cake with brandied cherries (via gastrogirl)
When I was an exchange student in Rheinheim, Germany, my host-dad was a konditorei owner, very recently retired and rather bored, who baked us croissants and lebkuchen and good brown bread any ol’ day. Every morning I slathered them silly with liverwurst and good salty butter and mild creamy cheese and lord, it was a TIME.
For one celebration, he made Schwarzwälder kirschtorte and it blew my little mind. My reaction must have been intense — who are we kidding? of COURSE it was intense — ‘cause he then proudly made it, “Nora’s Favorite Cake,” for every single celebration that followed, including that well-known German holiday known as Every Other Sunday.
Oh, I was fat!
Oh, I was happy!
Totally made up for his weird pale anti-social daughter and her weird pale anti-social boyfriend and the bitchy English boarding-school cutter I shared a room with — all three of whom I was, of course, contractually obligated to befriend, to the extent that such a thing was possible.
Thus is the power of cake.