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!
The good thing when you get married to somebody from another country is that you can start your own traditions. I got married to a Colombian 12 years ago, but we have been living in Germany since the start. Christmas is traditionally something we have discussed extensively. I have explained the difference between Colombian and German Christmas in this blog post. Man, we have discussed so many things, should it be the traditional bird as is common in Germany or should we go for the many snacks Colombians like to serve for Christmas? Should we make tamales, which is corn, veggies and meat steamed in banana leaves and which require a lot of work? Should we focus on the gifts instead or spend hours on the food? One thing we have learned over the years is that what works best for us is to create new traditions. Traditions that are neither German nor Colombian, but just us. New traditions we like and enjoy.
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.
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.
Finally, this is a chocolate and Nutella lover’s dream come true. Decadent, delicious, and so, so good! It may be rather small in diameter (18cm/7inches), but my, my, my. As this is a very tall cake (14cm), you can serve very small pieces and still serve a crowd. Let me introduce you to a chocolate cake with Nutella filling and frosting and a lot of blueberries.
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
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