How to Make an American Pie

After a long break I am going to do another “how to” tutorial. This is geared towards German people and non-Americans because I am going to talk about pie. What exactly is a pie? The most traditional pie has a dough base (pie crust) and a filling, it may have a second pie crust it is covered with. It was already popular among the American pioneers as it didn’t contain any leavener and could all be done by hand. It usually contains few ingredients such as flour, sugar, butter, egg, and milk and/or fruit or meats and has reached popularity also outside of the U.S. The most traditional pie is probably the apple pie, pumpkin pie or pecan pie is another classic you will find everywhere for Thanksgiving. In Germany pie is not that popular, even though the Europeans brought their different pies and tarts to the U.S. in the first place before it became so popular in the U.S.

It is impossible to find a proper pie form in Germany, I searched high and low, I used a springform (you can see a few pictures below with a springform), I used a tart form, until I finally gave up and simply ordered one online. The one I currently use (I have two) is this one and it serves me well. What I do like about a proper pie form is that it chamfered, meaning that you will get more filling than in a tart form or springform. Below I will introduce you to many pie recipes and will give you tips on how to make sure that you are doing a proper American pie.

02/09/2022

A Few Tips for a Wonderful Picnic and Two Picnic Recipes

Are you also such a big fan of picnics? I just love the idea of sitting on a blanket, enjoying a few treats I prepared beforehand and breathing some fresh air in nature. A picnic to me is the best way to relax. Below you will find two recipes perfect for a picnic. One is a berry salad infused with lavender honey, the other is homemade pesto, which I used on a sandwich as a spread, but which may be used as a dip or with some cooked pasta. All of below tips are also from my first-hand experience as a huge picnic lover.

27/08/2021

Coffe Date – What I learned Making a Three-Tired Wedding Cake

Dreistöckige Hochzeitstorte mit Schoko-Drip

This is going to be a slightly different coffee date to the previous ones. I decided to show you a few pictures of the second wedding cake I had the honor of making in August this year. I will try to keep it short, but I will let you know the few lessons I learned along the way. If you are interested in the recipes, please check this blog post. For more details on the process, check out my highlights on Instagram.

Lesson #1: A three-tiered cake requires much more work than a two-tiered cake. For that reason I made the cake layers at home in Munich and decided to freeze them. As you can see, I wrapped them tightly in plastic wrap and also used a plastic bag to keep them fresh. I decided to do this as the wedding was 600km away and I was simply too scared to carry a cake long-distance for such a long amount of time. I am glad I went this route, I ended up 7 1/2 hours on the road.

Ein Tortenboden wird gut zum Einfrieren eingepackt

You can see that I wrapped the cake layers in plastic wrap and a bag in order to freeze them

Lesson #2: Cooling boxes are my new favorite toy. I carried the frozen cake layers for 7 1/2 hours in this box, wrapped in ice and it was not problem at all to continue freezing the cake layers in a freezer. Yes!

Yes, it used a seatbelt for the box

Lesson #3: I finished the wedding cake in an Airbnb. Obviously, I carried with me a lot of the tools, including my KitchenAid. But it was very convenient to have an empty fridge for the cakes at hand.

You will see the three cake layers in the semi-naked style here

Lesson #4: Unfortunately, larger cakes tend to look smaller and bulkier than they actually are. I made 4 cake layers for the top tiers, but decided to use five cake layers (as you can see below) for the bottom tier. Reason for this being that the bottom layer somehow looked smaller otherwise. This is something you should keep in mind when you calculate your sizes, I had to add one extra layer to my bottom tier!

You see that the bottom tier of 30xm had five cake layers to get it to look a bit taller

Lesson #5: If the bride tears up when she sees the cake, I feel you have done a good job. And let me tell you, making a three-tiered cake requires a lot of work. I think I spent about 20 hours on this cake, let alone the many hours I did research, tried different cake recipes, checked many flavors, etc. Many of the guests came to me thanking me that this was the first wedding cake ever tasting fresh and fruity and was not so overly sweet. Of course each layer had a different flavor combo and as requested by the couple, I had used very little buttercream, but cream cheese, etc. for the filling. Below you can see how popular the wedding cake was, coffee time was not over yet when I snapped that picture.

I snapped this picture during coffee time, I think barely anything was left

If you are interested in further details or would like to know the recipes, feel free to leave me a comment. Update: I finally gave in and posted the recipes for the three-tiered wedding cake here. Also, I did do a whole series on the first wedding cake I made, you can check it out here:

Part I How to bake a wedding cake at home

Part II How to schedule a plan when making a wedding cake at home

Part III How to convert sizes and recipes

Part VI How to transport and stack a wedding cake

13/08/2021

Part 4 How to assemble, stack and decorate a wedding cake

In the last part about how to sucessfully bake a wedding cake at home we will have a look at assembling, transporting and decorationg the cake. Just to recap, these were the previous parts:

Part 1: How to calculate the size of a wedding cake

Part 2: How to plan a baking schedule

Part 3: How to convert recipes for the different sizes

For this part, let’s start with the assembling

Tip #1: Divide your fillings prior to frosting so that each layer is equally thick

My 26cm chocolate cake consisted of three thick cake layers and therefore only two layers of filling. This meant I knew I had to evenly divide the filling between these two layers. I didn’t need to coat the cake with any of it as I was going to use Swiss meringue buttercream instead so this was pretty straight forward. If you plan on using the same frosting for the filling as well as the outside of the cake, as a general rule of thumb you need at least double the amount for the outside tan for one layer. So if I were to use my filling also for the outside, I would have divided it by four.

My 18cm carrot cake had four cake layers and thus I had three layers of filling, which I divided by three before applying. I did use the cream cheese frosting, which I made like the Ermine buttercream, so has a flour base as I wanted to be extra sure that it would be stable. I use it also for the frosting of the carrot cupcakes. The regular cream cheese filling I usually use for the carrot cake is a bt too thin as it only consists of whipped cream mixed with cream cheese. I was too scared that my cake would not be stable enough and was happy to report that it worked out perfectly well, even in the middle of summer in Spain. I even had enough frosting to apply a very thin outer layer on the cake before I generously frosted it with the Swiss meringue buttercream.

The cake on the left after the crumb coat, the cake on the right is placed in this ring to become extra straight

27/07/2021

How to bake a wedding cake at home, part 1

Probably most readers are going to say that I am crazy. Because when I made my first wedding cake, I did this in another country (Spain) with different ingredients, and another oven. I guess I simply have to accept that because it is the truth. I guess I am crazy. But I decided to start a new series, which is all about how to make a wedding cake at home with a regular oven. I will start this series with some fundamental questions, which you should have an answer to before you even start thinking about baking that cake. Let’s get going.

#1 How many guests are attending?

#2 When is the wedding cake going to be served?

These two questions are fundamental to how large your cake is going to be. So please be sure to have a proper answer before you calculate anything. Let me try to walk you through this. So let’s assume that you are going to serve the cake right after the ceremony. People will most likely be pretty hungry. In this instance, it is easy to calculate. You should have at least the amount of pieces as you have people attending. So if 50 people attend, you should have 50 pieces of cake. Believe me, many people don’t manage to eat properly before the ceremony and will be happy to have some cake if served early on. Of course it does make a difference if you offer further cakes, desserts, etc. alongside the wedding cake. But as stated, if served right after the ceremony, people will eat more than if served at another time.

Cake of 20cm in diameter, height about 12.5cm, recipe Strawberry Stracciatella Cake

16/07/2021

Cute Little Hedgehogs from Pie Crust

I am almost to ashamed to admit that I don’t have that many animal recipes on this blog even though I am a huge animal lover. For that reason today these cute little hedgehogs from pie crust need to be published. I am a huge fan of anything related to fall. I love to watch hedgehogs looking for heaps of leaves, it is so cute to see squirrels happily looking for nuts or birds being content that there still is enough food.

20/09/2019

How to Make Homemade Dulce de Leche

Today I am going to introduce you to dulce de leche. Never heard of it? This is Spanish and literally translates as “sweetness of milk”. In English it is often translated as milk caramel. Its taste is similar to traditional caramel, but since it is prepared with milk, it has a slightly different taste. Dulce de leche is widely used in Latin America and served with desserts, pastries, but also along cheese or as sweetener for coffee.

21/05/2019

Twelve Tips for Perfect Sponge Batter

It has been a while since I last did a how to post. Shame on me. For that reason 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.

Check this Instagram reel for a visual how I make sponge batter

#1 Your eggs need to have room temperature

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 eggs

Beating 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.

#3 Beat egg yolks and egg whites separately

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.

#4 Beat your egg whites in a fatfree environment and don’t beat them for too long

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.

09/04/2019

What to Do with Leftover Egg Whites and Egg Yolks

You have no idea what to do with leftover egg whites or egg yolks? Here are some recipes for you to use them up! Scroll down if you want to know how to freeze properly. And yes, it is possible to also freeze egg yolks, just use a little trick.

#What to do with Egg Whites

#1 Make Meringue

The easiest way to use leftover egg white is to make meringue. Meringue basically means beating the egg whites with sugar until stiff and firm and then drying this mixture in the oven at low temperature. There are a lot of delicious recipes with meringue, either as frosting, as an entire part of its own or as decoration for cakes. I give you some options below, click on the links to get to the recipes.

Uruguays Version einer Pfirsichtorte (postre chajá)

Cute little mushrooms made with egg whites

Pumpkin Caramel Cupcakes with a meringue frosting

The Uruguayan Peach Layer Cake, which has meringue patted all around as decoration

The Colombian merengón, which means meringue, berries and whipped cream

The traditional Lemon Meringue Pie

24/09/2018

How to Set Goals to Improve your Food Photography Faster

You would like to improve your food photography faster? Then these tips are for you. Often people are surprised when they hear that I started taking food photography seriously about a year and a half ago. The surprise stems from the idea that developing skills takes a long time. However, if you set goals, you will see that you will develop your skills much quicker. Just as an example, below are pictures from 2018 compared to 2017.

Same recipe of my favorite chocolate chip cookies, above from 2018, below from 2017

Do you see any difference?

This is because I set goals for my picture taking. If you are interested in getting five hands-on tips, head over to Emma on the blog The Food Blog Collective. Emma offers a lot of wonderful tips for new food bloggers, I wrote down my five tips how to improve your food photography with goal setting faster here.

Check out five hands-on photography tips here.

18/06/2018

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