The combination of cherries, cream, and cherry wine actually made an appearance in the southern Black Forest at a very early date, but not in the form of a cake, but rather as a dessert with boiled cherries tossed in cream, sometimes with some cherry wine. A Swiss cake, thought to be a possible predecessor to the Black Forest cake, comes with the same thin pastry crust, cherries, nuts and cream as the Black Forest cake, but without the cherry wine.

Two possibilities are now generally accepted as to who originated the Black Forest cake. One is the pastry chef Josef Klerer from a café in Bad Godesberg near Bonn. One is Josef Keller (1887-1981), a pastry chef from a café in Bad Godesberg, near Bonn, who claimed to have been the first to invent the combination of cherries, cream and chocolate in 1915, before the First World War, as well as the use of Viennese pancakes for the base of the cake, and the use of cherry liqueur to add flavor to the cream, resulting in the current Black Forest cake, although it is not conclusive as to whether or not that is what he claimed. The facts are not conclusive. According to Udo Rauch, administrator of the Tübingen City Archives, the Black Forest cake was made from Viennese pancakes. According to Udo Rauch, a researcher at the Tübingen City Archives, there is growing evidence that it was Tübingen pastry chef Erwin Hildebrandt who created the Black Forest cake. Erwin Hildenbrand, a Tübingen pastry chef, invented the Black Forest cherry cake in 1930.

What is certain is that the first official account of the Black Forest cherry cake appeared in 1934 in Erich. Weber's pastry book. During that era, the Black Forest cake was mainly found in fine pastry stores in Berlin and other large German, Austrian, and Swiss cities, and soon thereafter became one of the best-known and most popular cakes in Germany, as well as world famous, with some of its ingredients being replaced by local specialties or the alcoholic content being removed in many countries