Desserts – Black Forest Cake honors traditional Bollenhut German hat

Bollenhuts, these wildly outrageous traditional hats and costumes pictured here are the inspiration for the Black Forest Cake.

The Black Forest region is known for much more than the dark loneliness of its forest.  It is also famous for its cuckoo clocks, dark chocolate, Morello cherries, and Kirsch, the double-distilled clear alcohol they produce from those cherries.

The many traditional costumes and hats of each town and village worn for holidays and special celebrations have brought visiting crowds for centuries.

The dress and hat of unmarried ladies is what master pastry chef, Josef Keller so beautifully recreated in cake form, possibly in 1915, although there is some controversy about the exact date.

The black dress are the 3-4 layers of dark chocolate cake, 

the white shirt with poofy sleeves are the layers and swirls of whipped cream, the 8-11 red pompoms are the cherries, and the black undulating lace veil shielding the young women’s eyes are represented by the chocolate curls.

The hats weight about 2 kilos or about 4 pounds, which is also about what a large traditional Black Forest cake will weight.  The giant wool pompoms signal marital status – red for maidens, black for married ladies.

In the United States, the Black Forest cake has its own national day on March 28!

May 3, 2010: 

Just discovered Rednesday, a meme at It's a Very Cherry World!  Since this particular post is so red, and so very cherry, it seems perfectly suited for that group.  I'm linking this post there on Wednesday for my first entry to Rednesday.  Just like me, many of the participants also love vintage.  :-)

A big warm "welcome to my blog" goes to all the Rednesday participants, and Sue, the kind hostess.  If you want to find out more about me, be sure to read my About/Welcome page.  Thanks for stopping by, and wishing you a great Rednesday!