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.
Pecan pie adapted for readers in Germany! If you are looking for a recipe which is not sickenly sweet, but actually makes you taste the wonderful pecans, this recipe is for you! Needless to say that this recipe does not require any corn syrup and is made with molasses instead. If you have difficulty getting hold of pecans, you may as well use walnuts instead.
Today you will get a simple, yet extra moist and very lemony lemon loaf or lemon pound cake. If my hubby were to decide, I am sure I would be making cakes with citrus fruits all the time. It is by no accident that my first published recipe is a French tarte au citron oder lemon tart. I made it for Valentine’s Day and published it shortly afterwards. My list can go on and on, I do have double lemon cupcakes, blueberry lemon cake, American lemon pie and (key) lime pie on the blog, I think it is endless. All of these baked goods were for him, of course. He just loves this tart flavor and I won’t say no to lemons and limes either. Especially in winter when fruits are harder to get and the options limited. So I decided to make a simple lemon loaf. The recipe I found used tons of lemons so I gave it a go and the result is full of lemon flavor.
Today you will get a pink champagne raspberry cake, with no artificial food coloring, but a lot of alcohol. You may also use your favorite rose wine. I decided to use a traditional white cake as the base and put a lot of reduced champagne in it. These cake layers are then brushed in reduced champagne for extra flavor and also to keep the cake moist. The filling, on the other hand, is prepared with raspberries as I find their tart and acid flavor to combine nicely with the alcohol. Let’s celebrate with this pink champagne raspberry cake!
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!
Today I am going to share a lot of tips and tricks for your cake to look all festive and perfect for winter. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I really don’t like fondant. I find it very sad that a baker spends so much time working on fondant and in the end about 99% of the people eating the cake will leave the fondant aside since it is so utterly sweet. This is so very sad! In my opinion there are so many other options out there. Instead of fondant, how about decorating with buttercream, cute little gingerbread houses, cookies or something else you may eat afterwards and which tastes better than fondant. If you would like your cake to look all festive for Christmas or for a winter-themed occasion, this is the perfect place for you. The good thing is that I will only talk about the decoration, which cake you are going to use, is entirely up to you. But of course, I will also provide a lot of cake recipes in case you are looking for inspiration.
Warning, you will only be able to eat a small piece of this decadent toffee cake with dates. I find the combination of sweet dates with sticky toffee sauce so endearing. This is rich, this is soulfood. The cake layers are sweetened with dates, the buttercream contains toffee sauce and of course the whole cake needs to be soaked in toffee sauce. I decided to sprinkle this cake with a little bit of coarse salt to cut the sweetness a bit. This is a prefect cake for a gloomy November day or any day that needs some comfort food.
Pastafrola or pasta frola is a tart from Uruguay, which is similar to Linzer Torte. It is based on a pie crust, which is then filled with quince paste. A simple tart on the one hand, yet also unusual as it uses quinces for the filling. I often wonder why there are so few recipes out there with quince? At least here in Germany it is really hard to find. Quince is a very common fruit in Uruguay. Dulce de membrillo or quince paste is basically dense jam, which comes in squares and can be cut in pieces. However, in Germany you may find quince jam, but even that is super hard to find. So for that reason you will either need to buy quince paste on Amazon or you will need to make quince paste yourself. Funnily enough, quinces are sold in grocery stores in Germany, so you may have a chance.
Guys, I have not introduced a classic apple pie yet. What a shame! As October is the months of apples and apple picking, I decided to introduce it now. Apple pie is something almost everybody loves, even though pie crust can be a little intimidating. If you would like to learn how to deal with pie crust, I recommed this blog post. But let’s give the floor to apple pie!
It has been four years since I put these ginger muffins on the blog the first time. Partially they are made with whole wheat flour, the traditional butter is replaced with coconut fat and we will not use any refined sugar, but instead sweeten them with molasses. Since they contain feshly grinded ginger, they are super moist and delicious. Of course you can argue if this really is “healthy”, but at least they are healthier than your average muffin. At least I didn’t feel guilty eating them happily with some joghurt and more molasses for breakfast.