It is World Bread Day again and this time I brought you some sweet pastry from Argentina, facturas argentinas! Facturas argentinas can be described as the typical sweet pastry you may have for breakfast or as a snack. All bakeries offer an abudance of different options, they are typically either filled with quince paste (dulce de membrillo), the caramel dulce de leche, or a custard cream. They come in different shapes and sizes, but what they all have in common is the same dough, rough puff pastry. Actually, it seems to be impossible to find the proper English translation. In German we say “Plunderteig”, which means it is a yeast dough, which usually has butter layers in between. The rough part in this version, however, comes from the fact that the butter is not worked into the dough as a single layer, but instead mixed into the yeast dough directly and later layered. It probably is described best as rough plunder.
Finally some cookies on the blog again. I haven’t posted a recipe for 9 (!) months, can you believe that? This is extra crazy because of course there were cookies in our house during those nine months, believe me. I find it sad that Germans tend to bake cookies only for the season, there even is a special word for these cookies, instead of Kekse you will say Plätzchen. But I ignore that, for me cookies can be eaten all year long. We had brownie cookies, my favorite chocolate chip cookies and Nutella chocolate chip cookies, recently we have had vegan pumpkin chocolate chip cookies or pumpkin cookies with cream cheese frosting.
Finally I get to introduce this delicious Oreo cake! I honestly was surprised, when I asked you on Instagram, 100% agreed to have an Oreo cake on the blog, wow, I feel honored. I already published this vegan Oreo cake on the blog. Last year, that recipe was among the top 10 of the most clicked recipes. So I had been toying with the idea of actually making a non-vegan version as well. When I presented below version to some test eaters, all of them said that it does indeed taste like a gigantic Oreo, just somehow better.
Pandebonos are the Colombian answer to the Brazilian pao de queijo, these little cheese puffs do not require any flour and are thus gluten-free. I already published one recipe on the blog, which requires mozzarella and feta to replace the Colombian cheese queso campesino. This variation uses farmer’s cheese and a quince paste. Normally Colombians make the paste from guava instead, this guava paste is called bocadillo.
Today you will get the recipe for a pup’s cake as our Australian Shepherd Hazel turned 1 recently. She gobbled up this birthday cake within minutes, I was quite surprised. I will never forgot how in August 2021 we picked her up from the breeder. It was a hot day. At the beginning having a puppy is quite demanding. It’s like having a mobile baby, she didn’t know when she simply needed to sleep and got all naughty and grumpy. By now we have figured out how to get along with each other. It takes a while to understand and communicate properly. Currently she is a teenager, just like a human teenager she is a bit rebellious and we need to show her her boundries again. But compared to the first months, I am sure we will get through this as well. But now back to the cake. Our dog loves strawberries and whipping cream. I know that some dogs have problems digesting airy products, so before you make this cake, be sure to check whether all ingredients can be eaten by yours.
May 20th is the worldwide Bee Day. For that reason I decided to publish a recipe with honey, today you will get a honey lavender bundt cake. In addition, I am giving away 1x honey jar from Münchner Honig, which was produced by the bees you see pictured here, 1x set of bee wax papers from Little bee fresh and 2x seeds to make a tiny meadow on your balcony to give the bees some flowers to take nectar from. How to be part of this, I explain below.
Did you know that working bees only live for six weeks? During that time they produce about a teaspoon of honey. Next time you complain about the price of honey, you know why. Considering that bees need to fly three times around the earth in order to produce one jar of honey, I would say honey is pretty cheap, don’t you think?
There are about 1,000 beekepers in Munich alone. Beekeeper Ines Zirnbauer runs Münchner Honig, so honey from Munich as a hobby. She was kind enough to allow me to take pictures of her while she was bee-keeping. While doing that, I learned a lot about bees. I am still amazed as to how much a bee is able to do (they have different jobs during their lives). At least I was not aware how much effort is put in one jar of honey. To think that for below recipe about 85 bees had to work all of their lives in order to produce the honey needed… wow, I never thought about that.
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I was not aware that the British Queen actually celebrated her 70th anniversary as a Monarch on February 2, 2022. Having reigned for 70 years, that is rare, as far as I understand she has broken all records. Obviously the Brits are celebrating, new stamps are being issued, there is going to be a tree in front of Buckingham Palace created out of 350 local British trees; yes, we all need to dress up for this special occasion and be on our best behavior. The Brits also announced a baking competition open to all people residing in the UK 8 years or older. The Platin Pudding was asked to be created. Apparently more than 5,000 people submitted a recipe. The winner is Jemma Melvin with a Lemon Swiss roll trifle with Amaretti. It is very time-consuming as all five different components are made from scratch. You can check her recipe here.
Do you know flan, a custard famous throughout all of Latin America? Flan is mainly made from milk and eggs, try to imagine a steamed custard, creamy and with a caramel topping. I already introduced the classic flan here. In Uruguay vanilla flan is served with dulce de leche on the side, so if you want a bit more of the caramel flavor, that might be for you. I also have a recipe from Mexico on this blog, chocoflan is a mix of flan and a chocolate cake. Chocoflan is also called the impossible cake as the two layers change during baking. Today I am introducing you to flan de piña, aka pineapple flan. The custard has a distinct pineapple flavor and is served with a thin layer of caramel on top.
Finally, this is a chocolate and Nutella lover’s dream come true. Decadent, delicious, and so, so good! It may be rather small in diameter (18cm/7inches), but my, my, my. As this is a very tall cake (14cm), you can serve very small pieces and still serve a crowd. Let me introduce you to a chocolate cake with Nutella filling and frosting and a lot of blueberries.
This coconut cake from Venezuela is called “bienmesabe” (this tastes delicious) for a good reason. If you are a coconut lover, this cake is for you. Coconut sponge is filled with a coconut cream and then covered in meringue and toasted coconut flakes. Not really sure if you can corporate even more coconut flavor into a cake.