Today you get a super chocolatey chocolate muffin. It has melted chocolate in the dough, loads of chocolate chunks and a gooey filling in the middle containing chocolate. These chocolate muffins are my version of the famous olympic chocolate muffins. Calling all chocoholics, if you have a craving for chocolate, this muffin is for you.
This chocolate zucchini cake was served for my birthday a few days ago. Of course I made it myself. Everybody who knows me is aware that I am a huge chocoholic. There is a reason I have a separate chocolate category on my blog. For my birthday I wanted a rich and decadent chocolate cake. Since it is zucchini season right now, why not make a chocolate zucchini cake? However, this time I decided against combining chocolate with a fruit. The most traditional of course being with raspberries. It does not surprise me that the raspberry chocolate cake has been clicked on more than 220,000 times. I have also another popular banana chocolate cake on my blog. If you are interested to learn what I have made for previous birthday check this out. Spoiler: each year I try something different and almost always it is going to be with chocolate. This year I wanted chocolate flavor, so I decided to fill this cake with a chocolate frosting. So creamy and so good, I think it is worth each and every calorie!
Attention, if you want to make these chocolate eggs with royal icing, this will take time. You need to be willing to temper chocolate (it is not that hard, but you need to be patient and a thermometer is mandatory) and you will pipe flowers with royal icing (or other decoration) on parchment paper first, let it dry (overnight preferably) before you glue them onto the chocolate eggs. Yes, these are a labor of love, but you will be rewarded with a wonderful decoration, gift, and surprise. I intend on keeping the large egg until next year for Easter and will keep you posted how that goes. I made these eggs during several evenings after work and it was so much fun and just the right amount of relaxation for me.
The chocolate was tempered correctly, the chocolate has a clear shine and got very hard
Today I am introducing German chocolate nougat sticks. One time a colleague brought these to work, of course I had to ask her for the recipe. And once I read through it, it sounded familiar. So I consulted the old cookbook from the 80s from the company Dr. Oetker and alas, the recipe was found there as well! By now Dr. Oetker has published the recipe online as well. These chocolate nougat sticks are such a treat. Bonus point, the cookie dough does not need to chill. You can pipe the dough right away. 
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I have decided to theme November: gifts from the kitchen. I really enjoy gifting people with homemade baked goods. I often gift these cute animal cookies; since the last birth was a girl, I made some pink elephants and carried them in a jar (see the picture below). Another good gift is dulce de leche, caramel made from sweetened milk. Today we are going to make fudge with peanut butter swirl and salted peanuts. I made the fudge in a frying pan, so it didn’t take that long. The fudge pictured below was wrapped in parchment paper and then shipped out of the country. Yes, you can ship it and it will keep. 
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Today I have a small three-tiered chocolate wedding cake for 10-12 people for you. This is a chocolate cake, which is filled with blackberry cream and frosted with a delicious chocolate frosting. I decorated it with fresh blackberries (duh), figs, and rosemary sprigs. I wanted to do three tiers even though there were few guests because I find it looks prettier than one plain cake. As the wedding took place at the end of September, I wanted to make sure to use seasonal ingredients and for it to taste like fall. Other than the wedding cake with chocolate drip, this one would remain plain, the main feature it being a chocolate wedding cake. I knew I was going to decorate it with fresh fruit and herbs of the season.
Chocolate layer cake with raspberry curd, who wants a piece? Anybody who knows me, knows that I am a huge chocolate lover. Yes, I do have an entire section just dedicated to chocolate. Check out my chocolate category to get you transported to chocolate heaven. As my birthday is approaching soon and as some states here in Germany will start school soon again, I decided to present a real decadent cake again. Yes! I know, I know, at least for my standards I have tried to cut back on too many cakes this year. So far I have presented Sachertorte, a strawberry chocolate cake and a lemon sponge cake with cranberry filling. That is basically a cake every second month, which isn’t too much for my standards. But let’s get back to this delicious chocolate layer cake.
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.”
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?
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.
