A sweet end to Christmas dinner

I always like to make a special dessert for Christmas dinner, and this year I was feeling confident so I decided to bake one of my German grandmother's famous cakes: Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, or, by American standards, Black Forest Cake.

First of all, the recipe I have is in German, which makes it a little harder than your average recipe. Secondly, my grandmother's handwriting is extremely hard to read. But, the most difficult aspect of all when making this cake is that the recipe is, in fact, no recipe at all. It is the bare minimum of a recipe: a list of the ingredients and how much one needs of each item.

Needless to say, it was an interesting day in the kitchen at my house. Two cakes later, and I had enough cake to make a three-layer cake.



It all worked out for the best though, thankfully, and I was able to present a beautiful Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte to my family for Christmas. Although it was a little dryer than I would have liked, my mom said it tasted just like my grandmother's, and that says it all.