Snowcake (Schneetorte or Kirschbaiser)

The original recipe for this cake uses a filling of gooseberries; however, I've never seen gooseberries in the US, so I used sour cherries instead. Although I don't know where the name comes from I can imagine the following explanation: The cake contains a yellow cake batter, which is overlayed with an airy and light meringue layer. The meringue is fluffy and crunchy like snow, so I could imagine that this is why the cake is named snowcake.

Ingredients:

2 Springformboden

Some grease

For the meringue:

3 egg whites

150 g sugar 

For the cake batter:

75 g (3/4 stick) butter or margarine 

75 g sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 package vanilla sugar 

1 pinch of salt 

3 egg yolks

100 g all-purpose wheat flour

1/2 leveled teaspoon baking powder

Topping:

75 g slivered almonds 

Filling:

1 jar sour cherries (Morello cherries from Trader Joe's)

1 package Vanilla JELL-O cook and serve or 1 package vanilla pudding powder

400 g whipping cream 

2 tablespoons sugar

Preparation:

1. Grease the bottom of the springform baking pans. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (or 350 F).

2. Prepare meringue: Whisk egg whites until stiff peaks appear. In portions, slowly whisk in sugar. You have to go so slowly that you're not destroying the structure of the egg whites.

3. Prepare batter: Whisk butter or margarine until smooth and soft. Add sugar and vanilla extract or vanilla sugar and salt and whisk until sugar has dissolved (no crunch noise). Whisk in egg yolks, one at a time. Mix flour and baking powder, sift and add in two portions to cake batter.

4. Divide cake batter in half and spread on springform bottoms. Now divide meringue and spread on top of cake batter, sprinkle almonds on top. Enclose springform bottoms with edge and bake each cake layer for about 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (or 350 F).

5. After removing cakes from oven immediately remove springform edge and let's cake layers cool down.

6. Prepare filling: Add cherries and juice to a stovetop pot. Add vanilla JELL-O cook and serve or vanilla pudding. While stirring bring to a boil, the remove from heat and let cool down. Whip cream with sugar until stiff.

7. Spread cooled cherry mixture on top of one cake layer, the spread whipped cream on top of cherries.

8. Cut the second cake layer into as many pieces as you want (usually 12-16). Put the pieces on top of the whipped cream. Chill cake for at least 1 h prior to serving.

Comments:

1. I only have a springform set with three different sizes. I used the large and the middle one for the cake layers. I spread the cherries and cream on top of the large sized bottom because whenever you try to assemble a cut layer on top of a cake you can never get the pieces so close together as an intact layer. So it turns out perfect with two different sized cake pans.

2. For a non traditional version you can certainly prepare this cake with other berries (raspberries or blueberries might go nicely).