Does this pumpkin mousse caramel cake count as cream cheese cake? I don’t believe so as it definitely tastes more like mousse than anything and you may even serve it as an icebox cake. But be it as it may, I find this cake delicious, if you like pumpkin and caramel, this cake is for you. We will use a Biscoff cookie crust and these already give a nice crunchy and caramel flavor. The filling contains a lot of pumkin and then we are going to top if all off with additional caramel.
Shame on me, I haven’t drunk a virtual coffee with you in such a long time. It is already the last quarter of 2020 and here I am, no coffee date as of yet. Shame on me. The only excuse I have is that due to the Corona virus my full-time job changed quite a bit with an extremely busy workload. But regardless, I should have taken the time to tell you a bit, shouldn’t I?
My nine favorite recipes with pumpkin. Finally it is the season again for my beloved pumpkin. So let me introduce to you my favorite recipes, be it breakfast, in a cookie, a cake, cupcake or in waffles, let this orange vegetable shine. What is your favorite recipe with pumpkin?
Where is the champagne? Where are the streamers and glitter? You are invited to a nice helping of this strawberry and elderflower cake! Why, you ask? I am celebrating my third year of blogging. The first recipe that went online on my blog was this lemon tart, which I still love to make. I honestly never thought I would be blogging for three years. I have always been a person who just learns things by doing them. Instead of figuring everything out beforehand, I just give it a go and see what happens. The reason I started this blog was because I got tired of having to pass on recipes I was asked to provide to my friends and family. I also wanted to have some kind of organization so I thought a blog may come in handy. I would have never believed that I would enjoy taking pictures as much as baking. Mind you, I once was a professional pianist, I always thought my visual ability was not as good. However, I am still enjoying my blog immensely, be it baking, food photography or anything else, and for that reason I hope there are many more blog years to come. How about a slice of this delicious strawberry elderberry cake for this special occasion?
Strawberry Tiramisu Cake! If this is not a cake for Mother’s Day, I don’t know what is. I was inspired by this strawberry tiramisu from Life is full of goodies (in German), which I can highly recommend. I have had people specifically requesting that recipe for a get together, so check it out! Anyway, since the strawberry tiramisu was such a hit, I decided to make this a cake. Because, you know mother’s day? I won’t deny that this is an extremely rich and decadent cake. But with such a sweet heart on the top I believe it is worth it. Oh, and just so you know, it does not contain any raw egg or alcohol.
In this post I wanted to give you twelve tips today to produce the fluffiest, lightest and best sponge batter. I love cakes with sponge batter, I especially love sponge rolls. If you would like to check out my recipes, please scroll down. I love sponge rolls, because they are fast to prepare, look all fancy and are perfect if you have company coming over. Sponge is also a nice and unassuming companion for any layer cake you want to create. It does not take over flavorwise, it holds back and nicely complements whichever buttercream or frosting you have in mind to fill it with. But sponge batter can be a bit hard to prepare. If you are not careful, it can get dry and it may not rise as much as you had hoped while baking. For that reason I have twelve helpful tips for you how your sponge batter is going to turn out perfect.
Eggs are what makes a sponge cake fluffy and light, so be sure to use the best eggs you can find and have them at room temperature. Why? Because they will be much easier to beat and will take less time. So be sure to use them at room temperature. If you are anything like me, you will most likely forget to take them out on time. So here is a little trick, put them in a mug with warm water while you take care of step two and you will be good to go.
#2 Measure all ingredients BEFORE you start beating the eggsBeating the eggs is one of the most important steps for fluffy sponge batter. This is because you are beating in air into the eggs so that they can lift the batter while it is baking. So if you don’t want your beaten eggs to deflate while you are rushing around finding utensils and measuring all remaining ingredients, prepare and measure out everything beforehand. Believe me, your batter will come together much better and you will be less stressed out when you start beating the eggs.
There are different ways of creating fluffy sponge batter. You can either beat the eggs as a whole or you can do it separately. I seem to always get better results beating the egg parts separately, so this is why I recommend you doing it, too. I didn’t own a KitchenAid for many years, so I had to use a handheld mixer and believe me, if you want to beat the whole eggs, you will need to beat them for at least ten minutes or longer. Not so much fun with a handheld mixer, is it? Also, if you beat your egg yolks and egg whites separately, the total amount you need to beat is still much lower, so I still do it that why. And here is another tip, if you use a handheld mixer, start with the egg whites, you can then just continue beating the egg yolks without washing anything.
You need to be absolutely sure that your bowl and mixer are completely fatfree before you start beating the egg whites. If there is a little bit of egg white in your egg yolk, that’s no problem, but if you have egg yolk in your egg white, it may not get stiff. To help stabilize your egg white, I always recommend a pinch of salt or a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice. Here in Germany we don’t have cream of tartar, so this is our way to stabilize it. I usually add the salt when the egg white is foaming and changes color, becomin white, which usually happens after a minute or so. Originally I thought I had to beat the egg white until stiff peaks form, but I learned recently that that was a little over the top, you only need to beat it until soft peaks form (see picture below). This is another reason for me why I prefer beating egg whites and egg yolks seperately, it doesn’t take that long.
I’ve decided to open the season, it is time for Christmas cookies! Have you started yet? Every year I promise to start early and then I end up with a long, long, long list of cookies I want to bake, but nothing happens other than the list getting longer. Well, maybe this blog entry with my ten favorite Christmas cookies will also make your list longer, but maybe you will actually bake some, that would be actually awesome. Please let me know in the comments if you do!
Seriously, I feel Christmas is not complete without gingerbread. Gingerbread houses, gingerbread men, ugly sweater cookies made with gingerbread, you name it. My recipe also includes some printables for these cute little gingerbread houses.
I urge you to try these cute little gingerbread houses
Hands down, my favorite cookie from my country of birth Uruguay. It is filled with dulce de leche, do I need to say more?
Alfajores, a cookie made with cornstarch, filled with dulce de leche and covered in chocolate
These cute little santas are a simple sugar cookie with ermine frosting, I just love them, check the recipe for further details!
If you really want to get into Christmas, make these cute little Santas!
This may not be the traditional Christmas cookie, but all these flavors, I promise, you won’t regret making these!
All my favorite flavors combined, peanut butter, chocolate, caramel and sea salt, yes!
You have some egg white left over? How about these little cuties? They only contain two ingredients, egg whites and sugar and are glued together by some chocolate.
You are making a yule log for Christmas? How about decorating it with these little mushrooms
Another Christmas cookie I can’t do without. Who can say no to these cookies with a slight hint of almond and yummy jam filling?
This is one of the traditional Christmas cookies in Germany, go ahead and try it!
They are easier to prepare than you may think. Obviously I give a lot of tips in my blog post to guide you along.
They look so cool and actually are not that hard to make, try these beautiful stained-glass cookies, they are a perfect gift and wonderful decoration.
These snickerdoodles are made with a lot of brown butter for extra awesomeness.
Oh, this joy of cinnamon and brown butter called snickerdoodles!
You may not know this traditional cookie from Germany, but it has brown butter and real vanilla. So buttery, so good!
These shortbread cookies are prepared with lots of brown butter and real vanilla. Traditionally from the north of Germany and so good for Christmas.
If you are a chocolate lover, these cookies are for you. Instead of jam or buttercream, these cookies are filled with wonderful chocolate ganache.
If you can’t decide if you want to do chocolate or vanilla, why not combine these two flavors? Make these vanilla stars with chocolate filling.
So which one is your favorite Christmas cookie you can’t do without?
I have to admit, I love fall, especially if you check the ground of a dark forest, you will find mushrooms, just like the ones I am presenting today. No, I am kidding, you won’t find these mushrooms in the forest, they are actually made from meringue. However, I do find that they do look very much like their original, don’t you think? I am sure these mushrooms are going to be a show-stopper. And the best thing is, they are basically made from two ingredients. You beat egg whites with sugar, which you then pipe into mushroom caps and stems, you glue it all together with chocolate, and then dust them off with cocoa powder, voilá!
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Have you ever eaten pumpkin waffles? I hadn’t, I know, shame on me. But this year I somehow got into the pumpkin haze. So I cecked out Pinterest and found a lot of different recipes. Finally I encountered the recipe below and bam, I was hooked. These pumpkin waffles are super fluffy, I love that they are crispy on the outside, soft on the inside and tall and thick. I think they can be served either for breakfast, but also as a nice dessert.
I have decided to introduce a new category here. Don’t worry, of course I will continue posting recipes, a mix of very simple and easy ones, such as these quick and chocolaty cupcakes, but also more complicated cakes, like this cream cheese cake with apples and salted caramel, which we even had for Christmas.
Reason for starting this new category is pretty simple, I have realized that I enjoy reading about more personal matters from other bloggers. I have also found out that people seem to enjoy learning more about me, at least whenever I get more personal, the response rate is high. You will find 35 fun facts about me in this blog post. I often get feedback that these facts are interesting and that I should talk more about myself. For that reason I am inviting you to a virtual coffee with me. I don’t know yet how often I am going to do this, I also don’t yet what exactly it will contain. But regardless, I would also like to talk about other things. For sure baking and recipes will also play a role in this category, but not necessarily the dominant role.
I decided to open the category with one of the questions I get most often and which I have had to answer many times over:
