Say Farewell with a Black Forest cake

One of our cake hour standard attendees is finally moving on from PVD.  Having done his PhD and gotten his MD over the course of the last nine years, he is on to his internship at Mt. Sinai in New York City.  It just so happens that his wife is quite an accomplished baker and had made many great delights over the years for cake hour.  So they offered to bring in a farewell cake before the big move to PVD, at least for him.  And what cake did they choose, the cake of all cakes a Black Forest cake.  This is one of our favorites and arguably the world's best cake if it is made right which it was this time.

It only took nine years but I'm heading out!

Creative top for a Black Forest cake!

Great work with the whipped cream!

Holding back the sea of chips!

There are a number of posts about this but to reiterated the critical thing is that it not be too sweet, so the cherries in the cake are the dark sour kind, the cake itself is infused with Kirschwasser aka Cherry Brandy and the frosting HAS to be whipped cream.  Happily today's baker knew all this and there was little doubt this would be well done.  There was a little bit of a creative touch on the top in that instead of the shaved chocolate and cherry decorations, she opted for a field of small chocolate chips.  This was nice and the large whipped cream florets that were created to hold back the chips were great. The black forest cake was popular especially with those of our colleagues that are not into American overly sweetened pastries. It did not last long but we will look forward to a return visit sometime in the future from our cake hour pal.

Cherries, chocolate, kirsch infused...all there!

Time to dig in!

It didn't take long to get to the last piece!

We learned today that working at the Research Center is for all practical purposes a vacation for some of our Japanese colleagues.  Apparently in the Land of the Rising Sun long days are the norm and families may not get to see Dad until very later or the weekend.  Here, during their research fellowship, they work pretty normal hours and get home in time for family dinner,  This first well with the researcher and the spouse.  It is a good gig for the researcher who develops prestige by doing this academic work abroad.  It is a good gig for the spouse too because there is some help with the family.  We wonder if this is the reason why, as we also learned today, that the wives really miss their American life once they get back.

A little slice of heaven for our colleagues from Japan!