Everything Chocolate Archives

Let’s Celebrate: Making Original Sachertorte

Let’s celebrate! It has been five years ago that I had a horrible bike accident including brain bleeding. You can check the details here. As I didn’t have any permanent damage thankfully, I want to celebrate with chocolate and invite you guys, we will attempt original Sachertorte! In 2014 I was fortunate enough to eat real Sachertorte in the Café Sacher in Salzburg. The below picture is one of the first pictures I took with my Sony camera and I am still proud of the shot. I mean, considering that I knew very little of photography, I would say it is a great shot! Sachertorte is a chocolate sponge cake that contains butter. Traditionally you will glue together the two cake layers with apricot jam and cover everything with a chocolate glaze. The cake is served with unsweetened whipping cream on the side. Of course I already have a recipe for Sachertorte on the blog. However, recently I got inspired to try again and make a version as close as possible to the original. Once I watched the movie “Sachertorte” on Amazon (a nice little romantic comedy in my opinion), I was hooked. In said movie the main character eats Sachertorte every day in the Sacher Café in Vienna in the hopes of meeting his sweetheart that mentioned she would celebrate her birthday in the cafe at 4pm. So I did some research. Obviously the recipe from the Sacher hotel was a big help. But, and I quote, I have to say that even the hotel Sacher mentions that “This is only an approximation of the original recipe, which of course must remain a tightly-kept secret.”

23/04/2023

Moist Strawberry Chocolate Cake

This is the perfect cake for Valentine’s Day, a moist and decadent strawberry chocolate cake. Who would like to get a piece of this deliciousness? The cake is made of a devil’s food cake, the filling is made with real strawberries and since it is not the season yet, we will use frozen strawberries. The final touches are a chocolate drip and fresh strawberries dipped in chocolate. Who wants a piece?

10/02/2023

Two Recipes for a Smash Cake

Have you heard of the tradition of smashing a cake for the first birthday of a baby? It is called “cake smash” and the tradition was established in the United States. Now it has become popular in Germany as well. I have to say, I am quite a bit jealous. Even as an adult I wouldn’t mind smashing a cake, you know. So being allowed as a baby to do that and being photographed, well, what is not to like? Today I am going to give you two recipes for a smash cake. Since babies are smaller, I would recommend going for a 15-18cm/6 inch cake instead of a 26cm/9inch one. One of the most crucial aspects of a smash cake is the frosting. You want to be sure it holds up nicely and it is something pleasant for the baby. The recipe below is for a vanilla cake with strawberry filling. You will also see a chocolate cake pictured, which contains a lot of zucchini to make it somewhat “healthier”. I included both recipes for your convenience. Below you will also find some tips on what is relevant for a proper cake prepared for a smash.

Featured photo and this one from baby photographer Chen Reissl Continue Reading…

20/01/2023

Brazilian Brigadeiro Chocolate Cake

Brazilians love a proper and decadent dessert. This chocolate cake with Brigadeiro filling (this is a confect), is definitely a calorie bomb. A small woman would probably devour two days of calories or so if eating one piece. I don’t know, but I know that this ain’t healthy or low in calories. I made this cake originally for a birthday of a Brazilian. I used the smallest cake pan I had. Because you won’t be able to eat much more than a tiny piece. This is a cake for all chocolate lovers. Sweetened condensed milk is a staple in Brazilian cuisine, especially in any cake. Brigadeiro is a small ball, made of sweetened condensed milk, butter and other dairy products and cocoa or chocolate. The balls are rolled in chocolate shavings (see pictured below). This chocolate cake has a Brigadeiro filling and frosting. The only difference is that it is slightly looser so that you can use it as a filling or frosting. The whole cake had to be covered in chocolate shavings as well, of course.

30/10/2022

School Cone Cake

So I started school in Germany back in the days. And you may not know it, but it is super common to have a school cone on the first day. However, I didn’t. Because we had moved from Uruguay recently and were not familiar with the traditions for your first school day. At least I had a proper rectangle school bag, it was purple and I was so proud! Every summer break I would scrub it and make it shine. I used it for many years. But to get back, I didn’t have the famous school cone, which contains sweets and materials for your first day of school. So I had to make sure when it was my niece’s turn for her first day of school, that we would have a cake look like a school cone. She of course had a proper school cone. The below cake pictures the one I made for her. It is slightly different, but I decided to show the pictures to make you realize how versatile the chocolate cake actually is. And also how easy and simple. I swear, this cake is so easy to make, it really comes together quickly. The recipe below gives you an idea of how to fill it with a cream and cherry pie filling. I hope you will enjoy!

14/08/2022

(Deutsch) Zusammenfassung Blogevent

Umwerfend leckere Schoko-Nutellatorte mit Heidelbeeren

Sorry, this entry is only available in German.

26/04/2022

My Favorite 20 Chocolate Recipes

Probably you are not going to believe me when I say that it was extremely hard for me to narrow down the list of chocolate recipes and reduce them to 20 only. Yes, I am a chocoholic, day or night, summer or winter, I will happily eat chocolate. Chocolate for breakfast, why not? It doesn’t come as a surprise that I have a full chocolate category on my blog. Today I am presenting 20 of my favorite chocolate recipes, simply, because I am celebrating this entire week with other bloggers I invited to make something with chocolate for me. I am celebrating that I don’t have premanent damage after my bike accident five years ago. Despite brain bleeding, a concussion, and a tooth I cut in half. Today, April 23, marks the day when I had the accident. I celebrate every year, with you and other bloggers. If you would like to learn more about the accident and my fifth anniversay, please check this blog post.

I am also excited that at least five of below recipes are among the top 10. Apparently I am not the only one who loves chocolate. I once managed to even with a recipe prize with this chocolate mousse cherry cake and had the chance to go to the chocolate festival in Tübigen. But let’s get back to the 20 chocolate recipes below. Which one is your favorite?

Layer Cakes and Cupcakes

Raspberry chocolate cake

Super moist chocolate cakes and a fruity raspberry filling, which isn’t too sweet and also not as heavy as buttercream. Many of you made this cake and love it as much as I do. I published a similar recipe recently as German bakers prefer sponge cake as the base- Please find that recipe here.

Black forest cake

This classic German cake in its very classic version. Chocolate sponge, lots of cherry filling, and whipping cream plus chocolate shavings.

23/04/2022

Decadent Nutella Chocolate Cake

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.

18/04/2022

Fifth Blog Birthday and a Raspberry Chocolate Cake

In four days on February 15th, this blog will turn five. That’s reason to celebrate! That’s why I am offering this super delicious raspberry chocolate cake. Why I am doing it four days in advance and why this is the second chocolate raspberry cake on the blog, I will let you know below.

I don’t remember distinctly why I hit “publish” on a Thursday, which was February 15th, 2017. I believe I had made this French lemon tart for Valentine’s. My hubby loves anything with citrus fruits. At the beginning of this blog I thought I wouldn’t publish anything other than cookie recipes and recipes my husband requested. It may sound stupid, but it also holds true in baking. Practice makes perfect. I baked, and baked, and baked. I would simply pick recipes I liked on the Internet. If I happened to make the recipe again, I would usually tweak it a bit. At the beginning I followed recipes as much as I could, tried to understand the basics. At some point I would start creating my own recipes. I would probably use a cake based I used in recipe X, but liked the filling of recipe Y better and would happily mix and match. In 2019 a good friend of mine asked me whether I would be willing to bake her wedding cake with 100 guests. I agreed as I believed to have one full year to practice. Due to COVID one year turned into two, so I practiced layer cake after layer cake. There is a reason that I published some many cake recipes in 2020 and 2021. Many of those were trial runs for the wedding cake. Among these was my first chocolate raspberry cake. Very soon I learned that this was super popular. You guys made that recipe your number 2 in 2020 as well as 2021, I just checked. I am so happy every time somebody bakes it again.

11/02/2022

Simple Hot Chocolate

Heiße Schokolade in einer süßen Emaille-Tasse

I had a weird quirk for a while, every time I went to a café, I would order hot chocolate if they had it, regardless of the season. I was often amazed as to what I was served. I remember eating some sort of custard one time, another time it seemed to be pure melted chocolate, and many times it was something in between. Today I am going to introduce to you some simple hot chocolate I do enjoy and which is very easy to prepare. If you so desire, you can also make it vegan. I have been meaning to publish this recipe here and finally I have gotten around to it, let’s have some hot chocolate!

23/12/2021

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