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?
And here it comes, a wintery cranberry cake with lemon sponge! Pshhhhht, this was the cake I baked for the 40th birthday of my husband and it was gone so quickly! This cake is tart and so perfect for a cold winter day. Yes, you can bake this cake also during another season in case you find fresh cranberries, however, I find it particularly refreshing in winter. So as stated, you will find airy lemon sponge cake combined with cranberry filling and a light mascarpone and cream frosting. So delicious!
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.
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!
Today we have a Mexican cake from the north called “mostachón de fresas.” Its base is a nut-based meringue (including crackers) a cream-cheese topping and of course strawberries. I learned that you can basically decorate with any kind of fruit. In Mexico mangos are pretty popular, but I figured since we have strawberry season and strawberries are also popular for this cake, I would stick to the traditional version. It may sound like a strange combination, especially the salty crackers, but my husband and me loved it.
When Meghan Markle and Prince Harry got married in May 2018, the combination of lemon and elderflower were all the rage. Yes, I also made a mini three-tiered elderflower lemon cake. Today, I decided to give this combo another chance. This year elderflowers are in full bloom at the moment, so you may even have the chance to make the cordial yourself. The new version of this royal combination contains moist lemon sponge cakes, lemon curd and a heavy cream and mascarpone filling infused with elderflower cordial. My cake only has one tier and I decided to decorate it with dried flowers and some fresh elderflowers. However, it is up to you how you want to decorate your 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.
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.
Did you have fancy birthdays when you were a kid? I mean, I do know that we celebrated, but I feel back in the days there was much less hassle. Today everything is planned and thought of, be it the invitation, the decoration, the cake, and of course the gifts. I don’t know which one is better, but I do know that I would have like a very pink birthday cake on my birthday as a girl. Since I love raspberries, I for sure would have liked a very pink raspberry cake. I do not recall ever getting such as cake, but why not make it now? With this blog post I also have the pleasure as giving these sweet little cake toppers away you see on the cake. They are from the talented Ellen Martens.
Cake topper from Ellen Martens
Guys, are you always happy to bake, regardless the reason? You finally told your boss that you need a salary raise? Let’s celebrate that with some cake. You passed the Statistics exam after the third try? Cake it is. It is just a regular Sunday, nothing special? Well, of course we want to have the German “Kaffee und Kuchen” (coffee and cake), so I need to bake a cake. In my opinion there is always a reason to celebrate, a reason to bake some cake. Today’s reason is pretty big, I am celebrating my third anniversay of the bike accident with no permanent damage.
