Cherry Cream Dessert – Authentic German Recipe

The Cherry Cream dessert is a delicious combination of sour cherries, heavy cream, and Kirsch Schnaps. In the South of Germany, especially in the Black Forest,  you can get the best Kirsch Schnaps and sour cherries. These cherries can be found in many German baking recipes such as cakes and pastries. They are very juicy and therefor great for this dessert. See our notes on using gelatin because you need it for making this delicious dessert. Happy Cooking!

Ingredients Cherry Cream Dessert

8 sheets red gelatin – if you cannot get them, use white gelatin and add some dark, real cherry or red grape juice for the red color
600 g sour cherries fresh or from the jar without pits (see below)
250 ml red wine
110 g sugar
10cl Kirsch Schnaps
6 sheets white gelatin – find them here – 
300 ml milk
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg
500 g heavy cream
2 tbsp grated chocolate

Cooking Instructions Cherry Cream Dessert

1. Soak red gelatin for about 10 minutes in water or red juice.
– Remove pit from fresh cherrie,  combine with red wine and 2 tbsp sugar, and let simmer for 3 minutes.
– Drain canned cherries and warm them with red wine, then remove from stove.

2. Press all water out of the gelatin; dissolve gelatin in the cherries and add the Kirsch Schnaps.
– Fill into 6 decorative glasses and keep cool.

3. Soak the white gelatin.
– Slice vanilla bean and with the milk and remaining sugar bring to a boil.
– Remove the bean, scrape out the vanilla pulp, and add to the milk.

4. Make the egg-milk cream: Beat egg yolks and whole egg until foamy.
– Add to the hot milk – Important: Milk should not be boiling hot!
– Mix well.
– Dissolve the white gelatin in the milk. Keep it cool.

5. Beat the heavy cream until firm.
– The egg-milk cream will start to thicken, mix in carefully the firm heavy cream.
– Arrange the cream on top of the cherries, and sprinkle with grated chocolate; decorate with one whole cherry.

How to Use Gelatin Sheets and Substitute with Powdered Gelatin

You can successfully substitute sheet gelatin for powdered gelatin in any recipe by using the following scaling:
1 (0.25 oz.) envelope granulated gelatin = 1 tablespoon powdered gelatin = 3 sheets leaf gelatin.

The recipe is asking for red and clear gelatin sheets. It’s almost impossible to find red gelatin sheets in the USA. We recommend to use red juice and combine it with the gelatin.
Dr. Oetker has the best gelatin sheets here in the USA.

Gelatin sheets are the purest form of neutral gelatin available with a strong set.  Use to make molds, aspics, fondants icing, chaud/froid (jelled white sauce to glaze hams, turkeys, etc.) and desserts.  Perfect to top and seal homemade pâtés. Simply soak the sheets in cold water for one minute, squeeze, then add to boiling water or any other liquids.  Cool and let set.  When set, gelatin can stand at room temperature for several hours without weeping which makes it useful for a buffet setting.