Multivitamin Cake (gluten-free)

A few weeks ago, a colleague from work had her birthday and since I’ve realized that generally people aren’t as addicted to sugar as I am, I wanted to make something for her that wasn’t as sweet as my usual stuff. So I unearthed this recipe, which I hadn’t made in years. At first I thought I had written down the recipe wrong, because there was no flour in it, but then I realized: it’s just gluten-free! Added bonus, really, as there are some people at work who always miss out on cake because they’re allergic. I tweaked the recipe a little to add a little more “whomp” to it….and liked it so much that I made it again for my own birthday a few weeks later (I told you I celebrated twice because of…reasons). So if you’re looking for something not too sweet and gluten-free but still totally delicious – you’ve come to the right place.

You can decorate this however you want. You probably wouldn’t have realized the two cakes I made were the same until you cut them (which was mostly because I screwed up my piping on the first cake and had to, yes, improvise), so feel free to try whatever you want on that. The first cake I made wasn’t decorated at all around the sides, because I had to transport it to work and I like to that in a spring pan, so I concentrated on (and screwed up) the top. Since my birthday cake wasn’t going anywhere, though, I concentrated more on the sides. The original recipe calls for a layer of cream and some advocaat (which is basically spiked eggnog, just nastier) to be sprinkled over the top, but I hate that stuff, so I never do it. I could go for the eggnog version, though, if you make it around Christmas.

And another note: The cake recipe is supposed to be for a 28cm spring pan, but to be quite honest: I usually take 1.5 times the recipe if I use a large spring pan to give it a little more height. You don’t need to double the filling, though.

Multivitamin Cake (gluten-free)

For the cake:
200g almond meal
100g white sugar
100g chocolate chips
80g butter
5 eggs
1 tsp baking powder (make sure it’s gluten free if you want the recipe to stay gluten free)
1 tbsp rum (optional)

For the filling:
about 100-150g canned mandarins (one small can should suffice; don’t use fresh ones)
500g quark
100g sugar
200g whipped cream
2 p. (about 15g) vanilla sugar (alternatively: ½ tsp vanilla extract)

For the topping:
½ l multivitamin juice (if you can’t get any: take orange, passionfruit or mango juice)
100g whipped cream
1-2 ripe bananas
3 p. (about 45g) white clear glaze (for the Germans: Tortenguss; if you can’t get that, use 1 p. = 15g or 6 sheets of gelatin)
1-2 tsp lemon juice


1. Preheat your oven to 180°C.

2. Line the bottom of a spring pan with baking paper and lightly grease the sides.

3. Divide the egg whites from the yolks and whip the egg whites to stiff peaks, adding about 20g of sugar while you whip.

4. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and slowly add the egg yolks, sugar, baking powder, almond meal, chocolate chips and rum, beating the batter well after each addition.

5. Fold the egg whites into the batter.

6. Bake for about an hour or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

7. Let it cool completely before cutting it into two layers.


8. Whip the cream, adding the vanilla sugar as you go. Set aside. (If you use vanilla extract, don’t add it to the cream, add it in the next step to the quark.)

9. Mix the quark and sugar until it’s well combined. Fold in the whipped cream.

10. Drain the mandarins and dry them as best as possible using some paper towels. Then fold them into the quark mix.

Please use a cake ring for these next parts:

11. Spread the quark mix onto the bottom layer of the cake and put the second layer on top.

12. Cut the banana(s) into equally thick slices (about ½ cm) and sprinkle some lemon juice on top. Arrange them evenly on the top layer of the cake (leave about 1-2 cm space on the outer edge).

13. Put the juice in a pot and add the clear glaze. Bring to a boil, constantly stirring the mixture. (If you use gelatin: heat up the juice, but don’t let it come to a boil. Take it off the stove and add the gelatin. Stir until dissolved.)

14. Pour the juice on top of the bananas. (This is why it’s important to use a cake ring.)

15. Let the juice cool down a little, then put the cake into the fridge until the juice has thickened.

16. Decorate however you like!

Enjoy!
♥ Nicole

Chocolate Raspberry Cake (a.k.a. the botched Kinderriegel Cake)

So last week…or the week before…no idea anymore…I celebrated my birthday for the second time (not that I’m still at an age where your birthday is something you look forward to) and I wanted to make one of my all-time favorite cakes: a Kinderriegel Gateau. You know Kinderriegel? Milk chocolate bars with a milk center? Heavenly. And the cake seriously tastes just like the bars. Love it.

But knowing me, you all know what comes next: Right. Didn’t work out the way I planned it, because for some reason, my chocolate cream curdled. Which it has never done before. Sometimes I really wish I knew more about how baking worked so I actually knew why this stuff keeps happening to me so I can avoid it in the future.

Anyway. So, I had to improvise (really, this blog should be called “A study in improvisation” or something). Fortunately, I still had some stuff at home to make a raspberry cake out of the chocolate cake and that one at least turned out rather yummy if I’m allowed to say so myself.

Raspberry Chocolate Cake (with a hint of Kinderriegel)


For the cake:
150g all-purpose flour
150g white sugar
150g butter
1 p. vanilla sugar (if you don’t have any, use ½ tsp vanilla extract)
100g melted chocolate (in this case: Kinderriegel if you have access to them)
6 eggs
2 tbsp. dutch cocoa
2 tbsp. baking powder

For the raspberry filling:
400g sour cream
500g quark
100ml whipped cream
100g white sugar
3p. vanilla sugar
3-4 cups of raspberries (fresh or frozen)
gelatin (6 to 8 sheets or 1 p. of gelatin powder)


For the decoration:
a few raspberries
about 100-140g of melted (milk) chocolate (5-7 Kinderriegel)


1. Beat the butter with an electric mixer until it’s light and fluffy. Slowly add half of the sugar, the vanilla sugar, melted chocolate and cocoa and mix well after each addition.

2. Add two whole eggs and four egg yolks.

3. Mix the flour and baking powder and add slowly.

4. Whip the egg whites to a stiff peak, slowly adding in the rest of the sugar, and fold into the batter.

5. Line a spring pan (28cm) with baking paper on the bottom and use some cooking spray or butter to grease the sides lightly. Pour in the batter.

6. Bake on 180°C for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

7. Let the cake cool for half an hour, then cut it into two layers.


8. Beat the cream to stiff peaks.

9. Put your raspberries through a food processor, leaving a few aside for decoration (I used frozen raspberries, so of course I had to thaw them first). I don’t mind eating raspberry seeds, so I didn’t do anything else, but if you don’t want the seeds in your cake or are looking for a smoother finish when frosting the cake, strain the raspberries through a sieve after puréeing them.

10. If you don’t have gelatin that works on cold liquids, warm up your raspberries (in a microwave or on the stove) and add the gelatin, stirring constantly until it’s completely incorporated. If your gelatin works on cold liquids, you can stir it in without having to warm up the raspberries.

11. Beat the quark and sour cream with an electric mixer, adding the sugar and vanilla sugar while beating.

12. Add the raspberries to the quark and beat until well incorporated.

13. Fold in the cream (if you had to warm up your raspberries, wait until the mix has cooled down a little).


14. Spread about 2/3 of the cream onto the bottom layer of the cake and put the second layer on top. Use the rest of the filling to frost the outside of the cake. If you feel like your filling isn’t firm enough to frost the cake immediately, put the cake into the fridge for an hour or two before you start frosting.

15. Put the cake into the fridge for a couple of hours so the filling and frosting can set properly.

16. Melt the chocolate, but let it cool down until it starts to thicken again before pouring it over the cake. Use an angled spatula to even it out if necessary.

17. Decorate with some raspberries or whatever else you like.

Enjoy!
♥ Nicole

The 12 days of Christmas Cookies: Day 7 - Nutty Cinnamon Meringue Balls

Wow, people - I need to hurry if I want to be done before Christmas with the 12 days countdown that's slowly turning out to be a 20 day countdown. Oops. Sorry about that, but I'm still having laptop trouble that's keeping me awake at night (quite literally), plus I kinda have to fit in Christmas parties and Christmas market visits and whatnot into my evenings (today it's The Hobbit), so let's just say: I'm never short of excuses.

Anyway. I've been making these Nutty Cinnamon Meringue Balls for the past few years and my success rate....differs. The first couple of years these turned out beautiful. Last year: completee disaster. Inedible. This year: nice on the inside, not so nice on the outside. So these are a bit tricky, probably because there's meringue involved. So it meringues, macarons or macaroons are no problem for you: go for it. If you've got an ambivalent relationship with meringue: maaaybe give it a try. Meringue never works for you? Go find different cookies. Seriously. Go.

Nutty Cinnamon Meringue Balls

For the cookies:
3 egg whites
250g powdered sugar
1 p. vanilla sugar
1 tsp cinnamon (Or more. I usually use waaaaay more.)
300g finely ground hazelnuts

For the decoration:
I've tried a few different things here before: whole hazelnuts, almond slivers and (this year) sprinkles. So whatever you like best.


1. Start beating the egg whites (best would be to use a stand mixer). Once they start getting stiff, slowly start adding the powdered sugar and vanilla sugar and keep beating until the sugar is well incorporated and the meringue is fairly stiff (mine never gets completely stiff, so don't worry if yours doesn't either. Or maybe that's my problem and you should worry. Drop me a comment if you have a suggestion there.).

2. Put aside about 5 tbsp of the meringue.

3. Quickly fold the cinnamon and ground hazelnuts into the meringue.

4. With your hands, form small, walnut-sized balls (it helps if your hands are wet, since the mix is pretty sticky and your wet hands help form very smooth balls) and put them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Make sure to leave some space between them, since they will rise a bit during baking.

5. Use the back-end of a wooden spoon or a chopstick and make a small dent in the middle of each ball (about 1cm deep).

6. Fill the leftover meringue (that we set aside earlier) into a piping bag and pipe a little dollop into the dent and around it. Make sure it's not too much if your meringue isn't completely stiff, because it will get runny during baking (Don't I know it.) and that's it's as centered as possible.

7. Put your choice of decoration (nuts, sprinkles etc.) on top.

8. Preheat your oven to 125°C and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes. The tricky thing (as with every meringue-based cookie it seems) is to find the point when the inside is done and before the outside starts to crack.

I didn't succeed this year - the insides were fine, but the outsides had started cracking already (as you can see on the pictures). But with me, it's usually all about the taste, so whatever. :)



Enjoy!
♥ Nicole

Coffee Toffee Cheesecake

Wow, I am really neglecting this blog, aren’t I? I’m sorry guys. But lately, I’ve had two jobs to deal with (and from next week on it’s kind of going to be three for a while) and so my free time is extremely limited. And it’s not even high season yet. So it’s only going to get worse. Had an extra-long weekend last week and I actually got my sewing machine out of its case on Saturday and after ruining three of the three things I was attempting to make, I gave up and put it back where I found it. So nothing new to look at on that front. Half-finished handbag (which is going to stay unfinished until Christmas at the rate I’m going) and two wonky pillow cases. Nothing to write home about. Or write a blog post about. My next free weekend will be sometime at the end of November I think (and that might change at the drop of a hat and be even later), so I expect to be tired, bleary-eyed and generally exhausted for the rest of the year. Plus, still trying to lose weight so I finally fit into my pants again, so baking isn’t really very conductive to that goal.

Nevertheless, I baked something this week, because it was a colleague’s birthday. As usual, I had to take crappy 7am pictures in the dark before I left for work that not even my shiny new toy (yes, I finally got a DSLR…that I’ve had no time to play around with or figure out yet) could really salvage. But you’re all used to that by now, so – whatever.

Anyway. Cake. As I’ve said before – I love cheesecake. Easy, quick, delicious, no matter what you do with it. I would’ve loved to make a peanut butter cheesecake, but since this particular colleague is allergic to nuts, I had to improvise a little. The result? Coffee Toffee Cheesecake. Which worked surprisingly well. The sweetness of the toffee was nicely set off by the not-too-sweet coffee flavor of the cake. I mainly used toffee because I still had it at home and wanted to use it up; alternatively, you can just as easily use caramel sauce and syrup instead of toffee sauce and syrup.

Coffee Toffee Cheesecake

For the crust
1 package of caramel cookies (I use Lotus Caramel Cookies, about 30 to 40 cookies; if you can’t find caramel, use Oreos and about 20 to 30 cookies)
about 50g butter, melted
100g toffee bread spread or syrup

For the cheesecake
600g cream cheese
200g sour cream
4 eggs
2 tps. vanilla extract
75g sugar
2 tbsp flour
2 tbsp instant coffee
1 tsp cinnamon
100ml toffee syrup

1. Line the bottom of a spring pan with parchment paper. Melt the butter and pour over the finely crushed cookies. Mix together with a fork or spoon until the cookie crumbs are really moist. [You can check if the crumbs have the right consistency by pressing some to the side of the bowl with the spoon or fork. If they stick easily, they're fine, if they fall right back down, add a little more butter]. Press the crumbs evenly to the bottom of the spring pan and put the pan into the fridge for 15 minutes.

2. Warm the toffee bread spread or syrup until it gets quite liquid and pour it over the cookie base. While the toffee cools down again, prepare the filling.

3. Dissolve the instant coffee in about 1-2 tbsp of hot water.

4. Put all the ingredients for the filling in a bowl and mix until smooth. Really, don’t worry about a right order or anything, just mix it all up. Pour the batter over the cookie crust.

4. Bake on 160°C for 75 minutes, then turn off the oven, open the door slightly and leave in the oven for another half hour or so.

5. Decorate as desired. (I piped some cream and drizzled toffee syrup on top.)

(Managed to snap a picture of the last piece at least)

♥ Nicole

Viennese Whirls

Just once when I go into my kitchen, I'd like things to go completely according to plan from start to finish. Really, just once. I'm not greedy. I have no idea how other people do it. I just know I seem to be completely incapable of producing something edible without some kind of drama while making it. Seriously, I know no one who has as much go wrong in the kitchen as I do all the time. What’s up with that?

Enter these little drunk soldiers beauties. I saw the recipe a few weeks ago here and they immediately ended up on my "try asap" list. I've been looking for an excuse a reason to make them ever since. Fortunately, it's September. And September means a sh*t-ton of my friends have birthdays. Excuse found. Especially since I saw the friends I made them for only before their actual birthdays, so for obvious superstitious luck reasons, I couldn't make them cakes, so the cookies were perfect.

I’m pretty sure the moment I had that thought, Mr. Murphy was already rubbing his hands in anticipation. It all started out innocent enough, though. The recipe looked easy. I did everything it asked (which wasn't a lot), only when my dough was done, it looked nothing like it did in the original recipe, but it still looked alright-ish. So I decided to give it a try anyway and stuck it in my fancy new cookie press that I'd been dying to try out for a while. End result? Each cookie got stuck on the press and there was no way to get it off without completely squishing it to death. Seems like I had to modify the dough a little. I added more flour until it roughly seemed to resemble the dough in the original recipe. Put it back in the press, tried again - didn't really detach from the press either, but now if you tried, the cookie just fell completely apart and instead of a beautiful little flower, I had five separate petals.

I admit, by then, I was already pretty fed up, but I had to find a way to get the stupid cookies on the baking tray, so I ended up piping them with one of my real old piping tips (that is actually for making little dough baskets to be filled). Now at least they ended up where they were supposed to, but...well....let's just say "even" and "straight" they weren't. I baked them anyway because I really didn't have the patience to redo them again.

Fortunately, after the incident I call "melting moment-gate", I've learned to actually let cookies with a high flour ratio cool completely on the baking tray before I even look at them, so at least they all turned out alright and didn't fall apart after I took them out of the oven.

But when I started filling them, the problem with them being not very even and straight came back to haunt me. Because they were so lop-sided, they just slipped right back apart when I put them down. So I had to device a clever little plan of propping them all up against each other to try to keep them all mostly straight while the buttercream hardened. Which kind of worked. However, what was supposed to look like some sophisticated little British desert actually looked like a row of drunk soldiers.

So what do you do when your cookies look like drunk soldiers? Exactly, you deflect.

Look at the pretty flowers! And the colorful wrappers. LOOK!!!

Anyway. They tasted really nice, though. Crumbly and sweet and they just melted in your mouth. So let's not dwell on how they looked. At least they were a success taste-wise! And that's all that matters, right?



Viennese Whirls

Recipe adapted from Five Euro Food

For the cookies:
250g soft butter
350g flour
50g icing sugar
1 p. vanilla sugar


For the filling:
100g soft butter
100g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 tbsp jam (original calls for raspberry, I just redcurrant)

Cookies

1. Preheat your oven to 190°C

2. Put all the ingredients for the cookie dough in a bowl and mix with a hand mixer (you don't need a dough hook) until you get a smooth dough (take a bit and roll it to a ball - if it doesn't stick to your hands, it's fine).

3. Try your luck with a cookie press (flower inset). If that doesn't work out for you, welcome to the club put the dough in a piping bag and - using a tip with a large opening (e.g. a big star tip) - pipe circles of about 3cm in diameter on a baking tray. You only need to leave a little space between the cookies, they'll stay pretty much the size you piped them.

4. Bake for about 12 minutes or until the cookies start to slightly brown at the edges. Let them cool completely before removing them from the baking tray.


Vanilla Buttercream

1. Mix the butter, icing sugar and vanilla extract together using an electric whip until the ingredients are well-combined and the sugar has dissolved.


Assembly

1. Try to always match two cookies that are the same size.

2. Pipe a bit of buttercream on one cookie and a little dollop of jam in the middle of the other (not too much, though, or it will all come out on the sides when you put the cookies together).

3. Press them together slightly.

4. Let the buttercream harden and dust with icing sugar before serving.

Enjoy!

♥ Nicole

The best carrot cake ever

I admit it, the longer I've been finding my recipes online, the more I started totally discriminating against food blogs that don't have pretty pictures. If I see a recipe that sounds good at first glance, but is accompanied by crappy pictures, I immediately assume the food tastes crappy as well. Which is kind of ironic, considering. Maybe even a bit hypocritical. But anyway.

Thank god I wasn't always like that, because once upon a time when I didn't care how a picture looked (meaning: when I hadn't really seen any great food blogs yet), I stumbled upon this carrot cake recipe. It came with a pretty crappy picture (seriously, could have been one of my own), but I gave it a try nonetheless.

Best decision ever. This has become my go-to recipe; I've even thrown away all other carrot cake recipes I had, because this is the only one I will need for the rest of my life. I've made it countless times now and it has never failed me. Nor has it ever disappointed anyone who's eaten it. It's delicious. And easy to make, too! What more could you want?

This one I made for a colleague's birthday. The sprinkles turned out tasting horrible, but thankfully their taste was totally overpowered by the awesomeness that was the rest of the cake. I had hoped it would turn out a bit prettier, but well, guess I can't have everything.

I've adjusted the original recipe somewhat, because (as always it seems), it had waaaay too much sugar for my taste and I usually add in an extra carrot or two. The original also has pecans in it, but as it's practically impossible to find pecans here and for some reason they get this really burned taste when I use them in this cake, I usually just leave them out. Around Christmas, I like to crumble up some speculoos and put it in the batter, though. The cake tastes best the first couple of days after baking, but I've eaten it for up to 5 days after I baked it and it still tasted great and didn't go bad, so that's always a plus.

Carrot Cake

For the cake:
4 eggs
300ml vegetable oil
300g sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
250g flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tsp cinnamon
about 5 big carrots


For the frosting
200g cream cheese
200g Creme fraîche or sour cream
100g butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
50g powdered sugar


Cake

1. Grease a 28cm spring pan and line the bottom with baking paper. If you have two spring pans, use both and divide the batter between them. Saves you from having to cut the cake later.

2. Preheat your oven to 175°C.

3. Mix the flour, cinammon, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

4. Finely grate your carrots.

5. Beat the eggs, oil, vanilla and sugar together in a big bowl.

6. Add the flour mix and mix until just incorporated.

7. Fold in the grated carrots.

8. Pour the batter into your spring pan (if you got 2 pans, divide it evenly between the pans).

9. Bake for about 45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Don't test too early if the cake's done, though! If you stick in your toothpick too early, the whole cake will deflate!

10. Let it cool. If you only used one pan, cut the cake in the middle so you get two layers.


Frosting

1. Make sure your cream cheese, creme fraîche and butter are room temperature.

2. Mix all the frosting ingredients together in a bowl and beat until you get a smooth mixture.



Assembly

1. Generously frost one of the cake layers, then put the second layer on top and frost the outside of the cake.

2. Decorate however you want!

Bon appetit!

♥ Nicole

Lemon Berry Gateau

Aaaaah, summer. Just when I was almost convinced that I wouldn’t be seeing any of you this year, you decided to make an appearance. Finally. And of course, right when it starts getting warm outside, I decide to start baking again. Go figure. Especially since I’m not exactly known for my pound cakes and pies, but rather for my…let’s say “cream-heavy” creations. But: even a creamy gateaux can be adjusted to be fresh and less heavy for a warm summer day (…and less likely to turn sour from one minute to the next) by substituting only a few ingredients.

This cake is as versatile as they come and you can pretty much adjust the filling ingredients however you want (or depending on whatever you can get wherever you live). I used a recipe for the sponge, but for the lemon and berry cream, I just threw some things together into a bowl. You can use quark, cream cheese, natural yoghurt, mascarpone, sour cream, or whatever floats your boat and just flavor it to taste. I tried to make mine a little lighter and less sweet than a “regular” cake and I thought it tasted fresh and fruity without being overpowering on a warm day.

Also, I’ve made the experience that many of the internet recipes I use are about 80% sugar (at least that’s what it feels like) and even though I have a higher tolerance for sugar than most people I know (Really, I do. You should see the looks I get sometimes when I go for the fourth piece of cake.), I’ve realized that most cakes work with about a third of the sugar stated in the recipe (sometimes even less). You don’t even have to substitute it with Stevia or something, just leave it out, especially in fillings (you have to be a little more careful when it comes to the cake batter). So this is what I did here (and what I usually do when I do creamy fillings): I just put sugar in a tablespoon at a time and tasted between each spoon. Then I stopped as soon as I felt it was sweet enough. So the measurements in the recipe can be seen as guidelines: they worked well for me, but feel free to adjust them to your own taste.

Lemon Berry Gateau

For the sponge:
4 eggs
140g sugar
120g flour
1 tsp baking powder

For the filling:
750g Quark (Magerquark, 10% fat)
300ml whipping cream (I used Cremefine, which is a whipping cream substitute with less fat)
5 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tbsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp lemon juice
4 tbsp lemon curd
7 heaped tbsp gelatin powder (we need gelatin that dissolves in COLD liquids)
300g mixed frozen berries (my mix had raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, and red currant)

As I said, you can substitute pretty much everything in this cake. Don’t have quark where you live? How about a low-fat cream cheese? You prefer the taste of real whipping cream? Go for it! 4 tbsps of lemon curd isn’t lemony enough for you? Put in a whole glass if you like!

Sponge

1. Beat the eggs and the sugar until the mixture has tripled in volume.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder and fold slowly into the egg mixture.

3. Line two spring pans (mine were 28cm I think) with baking paper and evenly divide the batter between the two pans.

4. Bake at 190°C for about 10 minutes or until golden brown on top. Let the cakes cool completely before filling them.


Filling

1. Unfreeze your frozen berries in a bowl at room temperature. If they’re still a bit frozen when you want to use them, don’t worry.

2. Put the berries into a pot and slowly warm them up. Stir frequently to make sure they don’t start sticking to the bottom of the pot. Let them simmer for a few minutes until they’re really soft and heated.

3. Puree the fruit (I used a hand blender) and put it through a fine strainer (because we only want the pulp, not the skins). Put aside.

4. Put the quark in a bowl and add the vanilla essence, lemon juice and powdered sugar. Mix well.

5. Whip the whipping cream (or, in my case: the low-fat-whipping-cream-substitute) and fold into the quark mix.

6. Divide the quark mix in half. Mix the lemon curd into one half of the mix, then add about 3 heaped tablespoons of gelatin and mix well.

7. Fold the cooled berry puree into the other half of the quark. Add about 4 heaped tablespoons of gelatin and mix well.


Assembly

1. Fit one layer of the sponge into a cake ring. Pour the lemon quark on top and smooth out. Put the second layer of sponge cake on top and press down slightly until everything is nice and even. Pour the fruity quark on top and smooth out as well.

2. Put into the fridge for at least a couple of hours until everything has had a chance to set before you start decorating the outside.

3. Decorate the outside however you like. I used about 100ml of whipping cream (substitute) and piped some two-tone flowers on top and then used to rest to lightly crumb-coat the sides so my white chocolate flakes would stick.

4. Put back into the fridge until you’re ready to eat! (Overnight would be best, so the flavors have some time to really develop, but you can eat it after a couple of hours if you don't want to wait.)

While making this cake, I also realized I have a new problem: since 98% of the cakes I make are for other people’s birthdays, I’m really getting into photography trouble here. The cake was done sometime around 10 at night, so it was too dark to take pictures. The next morning I got up half an hour early to quickly take some pictures before work, but the light was so horrible that the pictures turned out all blurry and dark and I didn’t have a lot of time before I had to get going, so I had to take a few quick snaps with my cellphone right before it was eaten. And this is going to be pretty par for the course for the foreseeable future I’m afraid. (Had the same problem again this morning with another cake.) Anyway, I’ll try my best to give you some halfway decent pictures at least.

Enjoy!

♥ Nicole

Zwiebackpudding / Rusk Pudding with Cherry Compote

Ever heard of "Zwiebackpudding" (rusk pudding)? No? Then you'll fit right in with...well, everybody I know. Apparently, it's a recipe from northern Germany, but since I've been living in northern Germany for a quite a while now, I think I would have stumbled upon this somewhere, but I have never eaten or even seen it anywhere else. At least not in this version.Zwiebackpudding is something that my mom used to make since I was very little. It was always a special treat, because she only made it a couple of times a year. So when I moved out, I talked her into bequeathing her mold to me, because I knew I was gonna make it more often than just once or twice a year. You will need one of these if you want to make this. You could theoretically do it in the microwave as well, but it gets pretty dry in there.

My mold has recently gotten a little brother as you can see, since the big one is usually way too big for just myself, though I really do like to make this when I have visitors. And let me tell you, so far, they've all wanted to eat it again (or at least they weren't complaining). And yes, the big one could use a vinegar bath, I know.

Zwieback is something very typically German, so I'm not sure if you can get it abroad. I've never seen it abroad, but then again: I've never looked, so you might be able to get it in some specialty stores or order it online. Or in every grocery store, who knows? The most common brand in Germany is Brandt. Basically, it's a twice-baked bread that is slightly sweet.

Anyway. This Zwiebackpudding takes a bit or preparation and an hour of cooking time at least, but it's totally worth the wait. It's sweet, so a lot of people ask me why I don't eat it as a dessert, but as a main entree. Well, because it's really, really rich. And filling. I wouldn't wanna eat it after already having eaten a regular meal. So you should keep that in mind when you decide whether to serve it as an entree or a desert.

Zwiebackpudding

For the pudding:
10-12 pieces of Zwieback
125 ml milk
125 ml whipped cream
4 eggs
80g sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon (or more. Just go for it. I usually put like, a tablespoon in there and the flavor is still pretty subtle)
1 tsp baking powder

For the cherry compote:
250g sour cherries (canned)
1 tbsp cornstarch

For the mold:
some butter
2 tbsp of breadcrumbs


1. Grease your mold (including the lid) and sprinkle generously with breadcrumbs.

2. In a big bowl, crumble your Zwieback into smallish pieces (about an inch in size). If they aren't all exactly the same size - don't worry about it.

3. Mix the milk and cream and heat up, but don't let it boil. Pour the hot mixture over the crumbled Zwieback. Let it soak for about 15 minutes.

4. Divide your eggs and whip the egg yolks with the sugar, cinnamon and baking powder until the mixture is a light yellow and has significantly increased in volume (about a couple of minutes).

5. Mix the egg yolk mixture under the Zwieback. Don't be too careful with it, it's not egg whites. Just smush it all together until you have a fairly homogenous mix.

6. Beat the egg whites until they're very stiff and fold under the Zwieback-mixture.

7. Fill the mix into the form (make sure your mold is only filled 2/3 of the way), put the lid on and cook in a pot of water on medium heat for about an hour.

8. Take the mold out of the pot and let it stand for about 5 minutes before removing the lid. If the pudding is stuck in the mold when you turn it over onto a plate, try putting a cold, wet towel around the mold or just give it a few good whacks.

9. While your pudding is cooling in the mold, divide the cherries from their juice. Put the juice in a pot, add the cornstarch and whisk continuously until the juice starts boiling. Add the cherries and let them warm in the juice for a minute before taking the pot off the stove.



Unfortunately, there is no real way to see when the pudding is really done, but with an hour, you're usually on the safe side. The recipe is for a mold about 19 to 20cm in diameter, but you can easily adjust the recipe to fit every size. When I use my big mold (which is 21cm in diameter), I usually make 1 1/2 times this recipe and the pudding turns out beautifully in about 70 to 75 minutes, when I use my small mold (16cm), it's done in about 35 to 45 minutes. Leaving it in a couple of minutes extra won't hurt it, so if you're unsure, just add 10 minutes to be on the safe side.

By the way, I apologize for the even-crappier-than-usual pictures, but I forgot to set everything up before the pudding was done and I really wanted to eat while it was still warm, so I just tried to snap some shots in my dark kitchen real quick.

However, if you do have leftovers - the pudding also tastes great cold. The cherries, too. So don't try to warm it up again, just eat it as it is. You don't even have to put it in the fridge if you just want to eat it the next day.

Enjoy!
♥ Nicole

Strawberry Cardinal

I haven't really gotten around to baking something in the past few weeks, because I've been somewhat preoccupied with sewing. Well, and there wasn't really anyone who could've eaten it with me. And I'm on somewhat of a half-assed diet again (and really, when am I not?).

So today I visited my former work place, so I used the chance of knowing there were plenty of people who I could share with (and who usually were very keen on eating my cakes) and finally made something again. I realize it may not look like much, but don't judge a book by its cover (Heh. A publishing pun.)...or in this case, a cake by its outside - it's aaaaall on the inside.

The base and top each are a layer of sponge and a layer of meringue. The bottom layer is soaked in lemon curd and topped with vanilla whipped cream and strawberries. Sound better now?

I have no idea idea why this is called a strawberry cardinal, by the way. Just go with it.

Strawberry Cardinal

For the sponge:
2 eggs plus 4 egg yolks
80g flour
1/2 tsp of baking powder
70g of powdered sugar

For the meringue:
4 egg whites
100g sugar

For the filling
2 tps lemon curd
300-400g of strawberries (well, basically as many as you want to be in there)
250ml vanilla whipped cream (alternatively: whipped cream plus 2 pkg. of vanilla sugar or 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract)


1. Whisk the eggs, egg yolks and the powdered sugar with an electric mixer until they have tripled.

2. Sift the flour and powdered sugar on top and carefully fold in until it's just incorporated.

3. Divide the dough between two 28 or 30cm greased springform pans.

4. Mix the egg whites for a minute, then slowly add the sugar and continue whisking until a fairly firm meringue has formed (it doesn't have to be super stiff, though, or you won't be able to spread it on the dough).

5. Divide the meringue between the two pans, and spread it over the dough.

6. Bake on 150°C for about 20 to 30 minutes.

7. Whip the vanilla whipped cream, cut up the strawberries into small pieces and mix the two.

8. When the cakes are completely cooled, spread a thin layer of lemon curd on the bottom layer, spread the whipped cream on it and put the second cake layer on top.

9. Sprinkle with powdered sugar right before serving. (Or decorate with whipped cream and more strawberries. Basically, be a lot more creative than I was!)


Bon appetit!


♥ Nicole

Apple Toffee Cheesecake

I ♥ cheesecake. I might even be a bit obsessed with it. Cheesecakes are easy, they’re versatile and there’s not a whole lot you can actually do wrong with them.

We Germans are actually very uncreative when it comes to cheesecake. Here, cheesecake is usually made out of quark and vanilla pudding, sometimes with a little semolina sprinkled in. If you’re lucky, there’s gonna be some fruit on top. And that’s pretty much it.

So color me surprised when I discovered The Cheesecake Factory the first time I lived in the U.S. First time I had their Dulce de Leche Cheesecake? Serious foodgasm. So ever since, cheesecake has been my go-to-cake. Usually I just throw in whatever I’ve got lying around and don’t measure anything and so far, I’ve never had one not taste good.


Lately, I’ve had a lot of apples leftover at the end of the week and for some reason, they go bad really fast, so I needed a way to use them up this weekend before I was forced to throw them out. Et voilà – the go-to-cheesecake! I actually have a favorite cheesecake recipe with apples and caramel, but since I only had half of the stuff for that here, I improvised a little.



Apple Toffee Cheesecake

Ingredients (for a 24cm spring pan):

100g crushed caramel cookies (or other cookies of your choice)
3-4 tbsp butter
400g cream cheese
3 eggs
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 medium-sized, sweet apples
1 tsp cinnamon
50g slivered almonds
4 tbsp toffee syrup/bread spread or just toffees

1. Line the bottom of a spring pan with parchment paper. Melt the butter and pour over the finely crushed cookies. Mix together with a fork or spoon until the cookie crumbs are moist. [You can check if the crumbs have the right consistency by pressing some to the side of the bowl with the spoon or fork. If they stick, they're fine, if they fall right back down, add a little more butter]. Press the crumbs evenly to the bottom of the spring pan.

2. Put the the cream cheese, eggs, sugar and vanilla extract in bowl and mix until smooth. Pour the batter over the cookie crust.

3. Peel the apples and cut them into smallish pieces of roughly the same size. Sprinkle with cinnamon and distribute them evenly over the batter. Press them slightly down if they don't sink into the batter.

4. Bake on 180°C for 45 minutes.

5. Let the cake cool slightly before pouring the toffee syrup on top [I used toffee bread spread - for the Germans: "Original Muh Muhs Brotaufstrich" - which had to be slightly warmed so it could be poured. If you use toffees, heat them over a bain marie until they melt].

6. Roast the slivered almonds in a pan without using oil or butter. Stir frequently so they don't burn. Scatter on top of the cake and dust with powdered sugar.

Enjoy!


♥ Nicole

Macarons with 4 different fillings

Aaah, macaron. My old foe.

For the longest time, I was scared to even try to make macarons, because all the recipes I read sounded like being able to make a good macaron involved about 278 steps that needed to be exactly right in order to get an edible cookie. And I'm really not good with following directions exactly. Nevertheless, I tried my luck twice and both times turned out, well, inedible.

Back then, when I tried to find out what had gone wrong, I was left with about a dozen possible explanations: Hadn’t I aged the egg whites long enough? Did I maybe use 126 grams of egg white instead of 117 grams? Did I whip them 45 seconds too long? Of course in hindsight, all of this was stupid. Now, I’m pretty sure the first time around I just sucked at macaronage and didn’t fold the mass long enough and the second time I simply took them out of the oven way too early, so they fell apart.

How do I know that now? I found Stella’s Macaron Mythbuster post. And I could have kissed her. A pastry chef telling everybody to chill out, because making macarons does not involve magic or any kind of elaborate preparation? Exactly what I needed to try again.

So after making the Portuguese Croissants for brunch, I had a lot of egg whites left over that I didn’t want to throw out, so it was the perfect opportunity to try again. This time, though, I tried to stick to Stella’s recipe as closely as possible and didn’t add colors or anything, because it was about trying to get the macaron right first. Colors and more elaborate flavors than vanilla are reserved for next time.

And lo and behold, they turned out beautifully. Alright, alright – maybe they could’ve been a little bit prettier, but that was me being totally unable to pipe them right. They tasted really nice, though and I’ll definitely stick to this recipe from now on, at least for almond and vanilla flavored shells (I’m planning on trying peanut butter shells next, though, as soon as I can get my hands on some peanut flour).


Plain Vanilla and Almond Macarons with 4 Different Fillings

[Shell Recipe from Brave Tart]

115g almond flour
230g powdered sugar
145g egg whites
70g sugar
mark of 1 vanilla bean
2g salt

1. Sift the almond flour and powdered sugar together. Set aside.

2. Mix egg whites, sugar, mark of the vanilla bean and salt and whip until it forms firm peaks, about 8 to 10 minutes, depending on how fast your machine works.

3. Dump the almond-sugar mixture on top and fold it into the egg whites. Every few turns, spoon out some of the mix and drop it back into the bowl. The mixture has the right consistency when it takes about 20 seconds for the spoonful to incorporate itself into the mix again. If it stays sitting on top, keep folding, if it incorporates quicker - well, you've screwed up. [Stella's recipe says it takes about 40 folds, mine took almost twice as many, so it's important not to simply count, but really check the consistency!]

4. Fill about half of the batter into a piping bag with a round tip and start piping circles onto a baking tray covered with baking paper. [Now I have a macaron silicone sheet, so I don't have to worry about size, but if you don't have one of those and want equally sized circles, find something round about the size you want your macarons to be, and use it as a pattern to draw circles onto your baking paper before you start piping. Don't fill your circles to the very edge, because the macarons will spread a little bit.]

5. Rap the tray on the counter a couple of times (to disperse air bubbles) and bake at 150°C for about 20 minutes. (Right away. You do NOT have to let them sit on the counter. I actually had two sheets and one had to wait 20 minutes until the other was done and the macarons I put into the oven right away had nicer feet than the ones sitting on the counter for 20 minutes).

6. Let them completely cool before you start filling them.



Fillings

I had actually made some coffee chocolate ganache for the filling, but the stuff took forever to cool down and harden and I was on a timetable, so I had to improvise. I filled some of them with lemon curd, some with peanut butter mixed with a couple of teaspoons of melted chocolate, some with raspberry jam and some with a mix of raspberry jam and coconut bread-spread (for the Germans: REWE's "Glück der Tropen"). The fillings all went really well with the subtle vanilla flavor of the shells and the peanut-butter-chocolate ones tasted especially great on the next day when the flavor had had some time to settle.

Bon appetit!


♥ Nicole

Portuguese Croissants

Close to my old workplace, there's this little bakery that sells the most amazing portuguese croissants. They are soft and yellow and sweet and oh my gosh, just so good with ham and cheese. Before I moved here, I had never had or even seen a portuguese croissant and at first I didn’t quite know what to make of them, but it only took one bite to get me addicted. I've been in withdrawal since I don't come by there every day anymore, so I decided to make some croissants for brunch last week.

The recipe I had seemed a bit wonky from the beginning and it turned out I was right. For instance, for a croissant that apparently can be translated as “milk bread” from Portuguese (don’t quote me on that, though), it sure had very little milk in it. So I had to adjust some of the ingredients to even get a working dough, but in the end they still looked nothing like the croissants from the shop. They did taste really good, though: soft and rich and slightly sweet and also really, really good with ham and cheese, but also with jam. So even though they’ll never replace the ones from that little café, they are quite an adequate substitute when I can’t get the real thing.



Portuguese Croissants

Ingredients:

200ml milk
375g flour
1/2 envelope active dry yeast
80g sugar
75g butter
pinch of salt
4 egg yolks

1. Warm the milk, but don't let it boil. Mix the flour and yeast with half of the sugar, pour the warm milk on top and mix until smooth. Let it sit in a warm place for half an hour.

2. Cut the soft butter in small pieces and add it to the dough. Add the other half of the sugar, 3 egg yolks and the pinch of salt and knead with a dough hook until you've got a fairly smooth dough. It's alright if it's still a little sticky.

3. Let the dough rise in a warm place for about half an hour, deflate it and put it in the fridge overnight. (Note: I usually prepare yeast dough in the evening and let it rise overnight in the fridge a second time, so I can use it the next morning, since letting the dough rise in the fridge makes it more finely pored. If you don't want to do that, simply let the dough rise for about 45 minutes and then go to the next step.)

4. The next morning, get the dough out of the fridge, let it warm up for about 15 minutes, deflate it, knead it for a couple of minutes on a floured surface, then roll it out in a rectangle of about 20x40cm. Cut the dough into 5 or 6 triangles and roll them up from the long end.

5. Mix an egg yolk with 2 tablespoons of milk (alternatively: water) and brush the croissants with it. Let the croissants rise for another 30 minutes in a warm place.

6. Bake for about 15 minutes on 200°C.

Enjoy!

♥ Nicole

Vanilla and Red Fruit Tarts

So I had brunch and a bit of a sewing session with my friend Kathi today (who I've been badgering about guest-blogging here considering she's the actual seamstress out of the two of us, so I'm sure you're gonna meet her sooner rather than later). No finished sewing projects to show yet (I've been working on Tilly's Miette Skirt under Kathi's tutelage, though I'm beginning to think I might be a bit of a lost cause), so considering how horrible the end product turns out to be you might get some pictures soon.

Anyway. I made some portuguese croissants (recipe to follow in the next post) and then on a whim decided I wanted to make some danishes as well. As usual, though, it was one of those days where I had planned to do one thing and ended up with something completely different. I had planned to fill the danishes with cream cheese and peach jam, but because I don't use my brain all that often I thought "why not make it a bit more cheesecake-like!" and added an egg to the cream cheese. Which turned the whole thing into cream cheese soup. So I had to think of a plan B. I still had puff pastry and I had cream cheese soup. What's a girl to do? This.



Vanilla & Red Fruit Tarts

Ingredients:

250g puff pastry (frozen or fresh, I usually use fresh)
200g cream cheese
1 TB sugar
1 egg
1 p. instant vanilla pudding powder (I used Dr. Oetker Garant)
1 cup red fruit (fresh or frozen, I used frozen)


1. Line 5 small tarte forms (mine are 11cm in diameter) with the puff pastry. (Just cut a circle or a square, press it gently into the forms and up the sides and cut off any excess overflowing the form)

2. Using a hand mixer, mix the cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla pudding powder for about a minute.

3. Fill the tarte forms about 3/4 with the cream cheese mixture and put some red fruit on top (how much fruit is totally up to you).

4. Bake on 175°C for about 20 to 25 minutes (until the puff pastry turns golden).

5. Let the tartes cool down a bit and gently unmold them.

6. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Enjoy!

♥ Nicole

Kind of a "best of", part 2

Alright, where were we? Fondant! Right. So since I really enjoyed the fondant course, I did a second course at the same place, this time tackling edible flowers...


Well, let me just tell you: I'm a rose girl through and through. Who needs lilies anyway? Even though they might look a lot easier to make, they're not. The roses on the other hand I loved. So much apparently that I smashed one of the kitchen floor not 10 minutes after these pictures were taken. Good thing I'm a bit of an overachiever and did two during the course.


Cookies! I LOVE cookies. For some reason, though, I only seem to make them on Christmas. But then I usually go to town and spend days in the kitchen until I'm satisfied. Fortunately for me, my old workplace had a Christmas tradition where you could bring in Christmas cookies, people could buy them and the money got donated to a good cause. So fortunately for my hips, I didn't have to eat all of this by myself (...and that was only a little part of what was actually there):


Another one of my obsessions is peanut butter...


Mind you, I hate the stuff right out of the jar. It needs to either be incorporated in any type of baked good or come in a package that says "Reese's". These were Peanut Butter Choc Chip Cupcakes with a Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting. Hmmm....Peanut Butter...


This was the birthday cake I made for my other former boss. It was probably one of the more involved cakes I've ever made. It had a chocolate base (...I just realized that apparently I only take pictures of all the cakes that have chocolate in them. I swear, I do make non-chocolate cakes occasionally), white choc and hazelnut ganache, chocolate panna cotta and red berry mascarpone mousse as well as a raspberry glaze. It was enclosed in a thin sheet of chocolate and I even made the decorations myself (which I'm very proud of, even though that was probably the easiest part of the whole cake).

Alright, I think that's enough for now. As I said in part 1, I hope to actually start blogging for real very soon, but bear with me if it takes a little while to actually find an event to bake for (if I bake for myself, I will have to eat it all myself - and my hips seriously won't thank me for it).

Thank you for stopping by!

♥ Nicole

PS: If you are interested in any of the recipes, I will try my best to find and recreate them (that is: find them in my folder of of recipes where I'm sure I've bookmarked them somewhere), so let me know if you're interested in a particular recipe!

Kind of a "best of", Part 1

So, as I haven't gotten around to baking at all lately (and let's not talk about my recent sewing misadventures...), I'm just gonna start of with a bit of a "best of" my baking adventures. Which isn't really a "best of" considering I usually forget to take pictures of most of the stuff I make. So actually, this is more of a "stuff I remembered to photograph" collection...so to speak. ANYWAY. As you will soon realize, I'm not exactly what you'd call a "good photographer" yet. At least not when it comes to food. So far, taking pictures of what I've made has mainly been an afterthought and you can really see that in a lot of pictures. I promise I will try to make more of an effort in the future (considering that now I might not be the only one looking at them yet) and, hopefully, my pictures will improve soon. What also makes taking great pictures with a nice setup a tad difficult is that I usually bake for other people's birthdays, so I can't really deliver photos of the inside of almost anything, because, well, it would be kinda rude to gift people with cakes that are missing a piece. But I'm grateful for any advice you might want to give me! No recipes yet in this post (...that'll happen as soon as I don't forget to write down what I'm doing while I'm doing it), because some of this pictures are from like, a year or two ago and I can barely remember what the stuff WAS, much less how I made it (...most of the time I barely remember what I had for breakfast). Yeah, I know, so far, I'm probably the worst food blogger in the history of food bloggers. Please forgive me. I promise to do better in the future. On basically every aspect of blogging. I swear! But let's get to the most important stuff: the food. So, what to start with?


This was an Almond & Peach Galette I did a couple of years back. First time I ever made frangipane....and I'm still preeeetty sure frangipane was neither supposed to look like that nor taste like that. Looked great, though! (And got eaten anyway. ;))


These were Coconut Cupcakes with a Peach Frosting that also did not quite turn out how they were supposed to if I remember correctly (are you starting to see a trend here?). So they got doused in coconut flakes and something pretty got popped on top and nobody even realized that that wasn't how they were supposed to look like.


My former boss's 40th birthday cake, which was a chocolate cake with orange mascarpone mousse. It had like, 5 layers and weighed over 4 pounds. The chocolate cake is my tried and tested recipe, but I wasn't too convinced when it came to the oranges. They tasted a bit bitter after a while, so next time I'd probably make it with a different fruit.


Another birthday cake, this one for a former colleague of mine. It was a bit of a joke, because she always has a big bowl of candy on her desk at the office and I probably stopped by there half a dozen times a day to get my sugar fix (which was apparently far more often than anybody else). The cake itself looked very different from the inside. It was a chocolate cake with a choc ganache and red berry mousse.


Ah, my first attempts at working with fondant. I did a course at a local shop here and this was the result and I actually quite liked how the blue one turned out. So naturally, after managing not to ruin a cake on the first try, I was convinced I'm a fondant master now and decided to make another fondant cake in honor of J.K. Rowling's new book (which I didn't realize at the time would suck - the book that is...well ok, the cake as well). Turns out: I'm not a fondant master by a long shot. Let's just leave it at that.

Alright, more in part 2! ♥ Nicole

PS: If you are interested in any of the recipes, I will try my best to find and recreate them (that is: find them in my folder of of recipes where I'm sure I've bookmarked them somewhere), so let me know if you're interested in a particular recipe!