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.
Warning, this cake requires a lot of work! Especially the cake layers take there time as you will need to make 12 cake layers in total and usually can only bake two at the same time. But if you are up for the challenge, you will get a delicious and impressive cake, which is made with quick puff pastry and a decadent caramel cream very similar to dulce de leche. This Russian cake was invented for the 100th anniversiary celebrating the “victory” over Napoleon when he tried to conquer Russia 1812. What once started as a smaller triangle to represent Napoleon’s hat, changed to a traditional cake and is known throughout the world as one of Russia’s finest cakes. I had the pleasure of eating it during several Russian-German weddings where it is traditionally served.
Even though you “only” need to make two components, beware, this cake requires quite a bit of work. You will need to make quick puff pastry and roll out 12 (!) cake layers, which all need to be baked. After that you will need to make the cream and spread it on each of those cake layers. Since puff pastry is rather stiff, I highly recommend allowing the cake to chill overnight for the cream to soften and marinate the cake layers. So this cake can and should be made in advance. There are two different creams commonly used for Napoleon torte, the one with dulce de leche below or one, which is similar to a custard-based buttercream. If you prefer this type of cream, feel free to use the one from this recipe.
This Russian Napoleon Torte is made with quick puff pastry and filled with a caramel-like cream. For the dough mix together water, vodka, vinegar and eggs and set asode. Then look for a big (!) bowl and mix together flour and salt. Add the cold butter in cubes and work this mixture into crumbs the size of peas. Try to do this as quickly as possible. Now add the wet ingredients and work everything together, it is OK if you still see a few patches here and there. The dough will be sticky, but try not to add any futher flour. Form into a ball, cover and chill for at least one hour. Then divide this into 12 equal parts (I like to weigh each one to be sure they are the same). Put back 10 pieces into the fridge and only keep 2 to work on. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. First form a small ball and then roll out into a circle on a floured surface. Using a plate, springform or similar, look for something with a diameter of 20cm. Place the rolled-out dough onto the baking sheet and cut out the circle on there. Do not discard the scraps, but leave them on there. Repeaht the procedure with the second piece of dough, rolling out, placing on the baking sheet and then cutting out the circle, but leaving the scraps on. Bake these two circles for about 10-11min, it is OK if they are barely golden. Let cool. While the two circles are baking, continue with two more pieces. Repeat the process with all 12 pieces, you should have 12 baked circles and scraps at the end, let everything cool. If you want to, you can continue the next day. Cover tightly or freeze until further use. For the cream beat the soft butter for about 7-10 minutes until fluffy and much lighter in color. Slowly add the dulce de leche by the spoonful. Only cream in cream cheese, vanilla extract and salt last and mix until combined. Now take one bake circle as the bottom and evenly spread about two heaping tablespoons of the cream on it. Place a second circle on top and repeat this procedure until you have stacked the 12 circles, each time with cream in between. You still should have enough cream left to frost the outside of the cake. Now either create crumbs with the sraps using a zip-lock bag and a rolling pin to smash them, or a food processor. Pat these crumbs onto the top and sides of the cake. You should do this as long as the cream still is soft as it will serve as a glue. Once done, chill at least for one night or longer. This time is needed for the cake layers to soften and for the cream to marinate the quick puff pastry. Otherwise it is going to be hard to cut through. I served the Napoleon cake with some frozen raspberries, which I cooked with some sugar to create a sauce, but kindly note that this is not traditional for Napoleon. However, all my test eaters prefered it with it.
Russian Napoleon Torte
Ingredients
Instructions
Have you ever tried the combo apricot with rosemary? My apricot rosemary jam became so popular that I decided to invent a cake with this flavor combination. I find that it is perfect in summer, it has this fresh taste to it and feels light and fluffy. So here you go, here you get a very light sponge cake, which is filled with an apricot cream and topped off with some caramelized apricots. Yum, so good!
Guys, we need to celebrate! We need to celebrate as we managed to move within the city of Munich, we need to celebrate as it has been three years since my horrible bike accident and I don’t have any permanent damage. We all need to celebrate as during COVID19 we need to hold on to special moments and celebrate life. In this monochromatic time when working from home means that every day looks exactly the same, we need to put time aside to enjoy the moment. For that reason I brought a fruity and moist Piña Colada cake to the party. It contains some coconut sponges, which are filled with pineapple filliing and is then frosted with a coconut yoghurt cream. Of course it is also soaked in some rum. In my opinion this is the perfect cake if you wish to celebrate.