Category Archives: Cake & Pastry

February 2nd, 2015

Baked Apple Cake

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Almonds, Apple, Cinnamon 3 Responses

It was snowing in the morning when I got up and it kept snowing. That is more snow then precasted and we have a nice winter chaos out there. The main problem (like every year) are trucks without winter tyre. The traffic jam on our highway is at the moment about 20 km and I’m nearly happy that I’m on sick leave due to a fevery bronchitis and can stay home.

And so I use the time to show you the baked apple cake I made some weeks ago. The tiny little apples were part of my christmas decoration and slowly they have to be eaten. And because they where great as baked apple before I was inspired to bake a bake apple cake. It was a spontaneous idea. And just when I put the cake in the oven my parents called if we want to take a walk in the woods together in the afternoon. Maybe they smelled already the delicious cake?

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October 12th, 2014

Apfelkuchen nach Günther Weber

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Apple, Curd, Hefe-Mürbeteig, only with yeast, Saure Sahne 8 Responses

When autumn brings the first ripe apples I have to bake apple cake. The best apple for apple cakes is (and will always be) “Jakob Lebel”, a heritage apple with great flavour. My parents grow “Jakob Lebel” in their garden and so I can bake apple cakes with my favourite apple! This year was bad year for apples and so there will be not as much apples as in the last years. And so I have to enjoy and celebrate every apple I get!In Günthers book I found a recipe for apple cake with a sour cream and quark filling which sounded perfectly for me. And so I calculated the recipe down to a standard size spring form (26 cm diameter).

The dough is a yeasted short crust, a kind of crust I learned to love because it is easy in handling. It is made by mixing a yeast dough (for example with some challah dough or some sweet starter) and a short crust pastry. It is a very good crust – not only in handling but although in taste. The filling of apple slices and quark tastes delicious, too. As a little improvement I would blanch the apples the next time I bake this cake to make them really soft but this is only due to my personal preference. The cake is really great and I’m sure that I did not make him the last time!

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October 3rd, 2014

Gebrannte-Mandeln-Zopf

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Almonds, Amaretto, Cinnamon, lactose free, only with yeast, Pâte fermentée, Tonkabohne 26 Responses

There are traditions I would never break with, like baking a nut braid for my colleagues for my birthday coffee break. Everyone loves this braid, its tender crumb with the generous amout of filling. And the filling helps to keep the braid fresh for a long time, too.

This year, anyway, I had to face a problem. A new colleague is allergic against hazel- and walnuts and is lactose intolerant, too. Luckily she can eat almonds and so I decided to bake a new kind of braid filled with caramelized almonds, tonka bean and a little bit of amaretto. The dough is made with lactose free margarine instead of butter but if you don’t have to cook laktose free I would suggest using butter for a even finer aroma.

Like the nut braid this braid is perfect for being taken to work because it tastes best the day after baking when all the different nuances of the spices melt together. The filling keeps the braid soft and fresh. But how much longer it could be kept I cannot tell you because 2 kg of almond braid where eaten from 16 persons in shortest time. Not a crumb was left!

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September 13th, 2014

Autumn Streusel cake with Powidl

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Cardamom, Cinnamon, Nuss, Streusel, Sweet starter, Vanilla, Zwetschgen 8 Responses

When August changes into September it marks the beginning of autumn for me.

Now I start to search for my scarfs for the already cool, misty mornings and in the evening I will lit the first candles when the light goes down. Saying goodbye to the summer is not so hard for me, especially when between the cool morning and early evening lies a sunny, golden day. And when I can spent the light filled afternoon with a cup of hot tea together with a pieces of streusel cake filled with the autumn flavours of plum sauce and hazelnuts, then I will welcome autumn light-hearted!

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September 7th, 2014

Apple Mousse Torte

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Apple, Cinnamon, Geburtstagskuchen, Sahne, Tonkabohne, White Chocolate 21 Responses

Celebrating my birthday always means for me baking a cake I like very much, too! And something I like very much are cakes baked with the heritage apple “Jakob Lebel” which grows in my parents garden. For me this is the ideal apple for baking cakes or making apple juice. And so I decided that my birthday cake will be apple torte. But I did not use the windfall apples but the last glasses of apple sauce, apple juice and apple slices I preserved last year, so I make room for new, too!

The torte consists of a thin cinnamon cream layer, topped with a apple slices in apple juice jelly (made with agar) and covered with an apple mousse. On top of the cake there are fanned apple slices and a little rose formed with apple slices, which looks beautiful. To prevent stress on my birthday I prepared most of the cake the night before, so I only had to do the rose and fanned apple the next morning. That worked very well and we had a beautiful day in my parents garden, where I took the pictures of the cake together with windfall apples, too.

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August 31st, 2014

Butterkuchen (with sweet Starter)

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Almonds, Butter, Sweet starter, Zucker 8 Responses

A Butterkuchen in its simplicity is one of the most enchanting cakes for me. It is only made with some flour, milk, butter, sugar and yeast and allows each ingredients to shine. And when the fridge is still rather empty after coming home after our vacation trip, it is the perfect cake because it only needs so few ingredients. And after a short search in the cupboard I even found some almond splices which I sprinkled over the cake for the more luxury variant.

And because the sweet starter had to be fed after being trapped in the fridge for two weeks anyway I decided that I would bake the cake with sweet starter instead of yeast. To ensure that the starter is strong enough after sleeping in the fridge for so long I fed it once in the evening, put it in the fridge after 3 hours at 30°C and then fed it again the next morning. Due to the fact that a sweet starter will not let a dough rise as fast as with commercial yeast it takes from 8 o’clock in the morning until half past three in the afternoon until we could try the still warm cake.

It may not be the fastest method to bake this cake but you will be rewarded with a soft, fluffy cake packed with a lot of tender but complex flavour notes. And while the cake it technically baked with a sourdough, there is not even a hind if acidity. I love my sweet starter!

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July 27th, 2014

Alsacian Kougelhopf

Category Cake & Pastry, Special Occasions Tags: Almonds, Butter, Cake, Eier, Elsass, Raisins, Sweet starter, Vanilla 45 Responses

Nearly a year has passed since our visit in Alsace in our summer vacation. One of the souvenirs I brought home after two splendid weeks in france was a clay baking form for Kougelhopf. It is sitting on my kitchen cabinet since then, waiting for me to create a recipe for Kugelhopf.

This weekend I finally found the time to study different Kougelhopf recipes. But I did not like them, all of them use a lot of yeast and give the dough no time to rest properly to develop a good flavour. And I wanted a recipe which uses a preferment for better taste and longer shelf life! And so I decided to use my own interpreation with a sweet starter which helps to rise the buttery dough without using a lot of yeast.

The cake is more time consuming then other recipes you may find in the web, but it develops a fine complex flavour and light and feathery crumb. I imaging that even my alsacian great-grandmother would have enjoyed it!

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July 13th, 2014

Quark Blueberry Pastry

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Blaubeeren, Cardamom, Curd, Sweet starter, Vanilla 3 Responses

It’s berry season! After we spent the last weeks with cooking red currant, raspberry and strawberry jam we turned our attention to the blueberries. Beside of cooking jam I set some aside to use them for a little weekend treat. Together with some quark I baked quark blueberry pastries.

For the dough I used my sweet starter which was just freshly feed. But like for this Sonntagszopf you can use Lievito madre or a biga instead. What ever you choose as a preferment, it will be delicious!

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July 6th, 2014

Red Currant and Chocolate Cake

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Almonds, Chocolate, Johannisbeeren, Vanilla 9 Responses

This year is a great year for berries. In my parents garden the red currants bushes bent down under the load of ripe berries. Two weeks ago I picked enough berries to cook enough red currant jelly for the coming year and it you could hardly see that I take any fruits. And so I picked another 2 kilogramm berries in betweeen two thunderstorms last Friday afternoon. The most of the currants are cleaned and froozen, the rest I used for baking a cake.

I found the recipe at Chili & Ciabatta, but due to the leftover in my baking drawer I changed the dough already a lot, adding grounded almonds and chocolate. And the for the vanilla creme I go for a different recipe because I do not use gelatine.

And even if the recipe is a different one in the end, the cake tastes fantastic. A sweet vanillacreme is balanced by the tarte red currants and with chocolate you can never do wronge!

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June 19th, 2014

Little Peach Tortes with a red heart

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Johannisbeeren, Pfirsich, raspberry, Sahne, Yoghurt, Zitrone 6 Responses

When I looked through my freezer two weeks ago I found some red currants from last year and some peaches, which seems to hide themselves when I was baking peache torte in February. Looking on the the berries and peaches I decided to bake some little mousse tortes.

For the Sponge I used a recipe from Matthias Ludwigs . He whips the egg white together with starch to soft peaks. I could not believe that it should work but it did! It helps to fold in the flour, starch and egg white in the dough without loosing its volume. For the filling I created once again my own recipe.

Because pentecost was a really warm day, I froze the tortes for four hours. And even then the 15 minute ride in the hot car was enough to defrost them. At my parents place, we enjoyed them together with iced coffee, ginger basil lemonade and an elder flower lemonade in the shadow on their veranda. There is no better way to spend a summer sunday!

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