…happy one year of baking and blogging!

It’s been a year, wow! One year with 38 published posts, that means I baked every ten days,
and I have to admit, I bake more then I publish.
One of the very most impressive cakes I’ve seen so far, was a rose cake from I am Baker. And I always wanted to make one. So I did for that special day, but I definitely need more rose piping practice.

The recipe for the cake was Betty Crocker’s yellow cake again. Between the layers are strawberries with wiped cream…
I want to say thank you, to the little community of readers, thanks for the comments, the “likes” and thanks to my honey husband for trying each cake and supporting me so much! I love you!

Oh, let’s get rich and buy our parents homes in the South of France
let’s get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
and teach them how to dance
let’s get rich and build our house on a mountain
making everybody look like ants
from way up there, you and I, you and I, you and I

I am off…Cheers!

After living with my American husband for over 4 years, I got all the American holidays set up in my mind. And I don’t want to miss them, it’s always a good occasion for a cake!

I just finished yesterday a great all day baking experience of 80 cupcakes for a wedding. And some might think after such a day you need a break… not me! I had strawberries left and found a hand full of blueberries in my freezer and did a classic “American flag” 4th of July cake. Sorry I didn’t use 50 blueberries for the stars…I simply didn’t have as many.

The yellow cake recipe is from Betty Crocker’s.

Ingredients 

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup butter or stick non dairy margarine, softened
• 1 1/4 cups milk or soymilk
• 3 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 Celsius).

Grease bottom and sides of rectangular pan, 13 X 9 X 2 inches, 2 round pans 9 X 1 1/2 inches, or 3 round pans, 8 X 1 1/2 inches with shortening and lightly flour.*

Beat all ingredients with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly.

Beat on high speed 3 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally; pour into pan(s).

Bake in a rectangle pan 35 to 40 minutes, 9-inch rounds 25 to 30 minutes, 8-inch rounds 30 to 35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean or until cake springs back when touched lightly in center.

Cool completely, about 1 hour.

Frost with white frosting and decorate with fruits.

I will definitely use the yellow cake recipe again, it’s a very moist yummy cake, perfect for frosting.

Well, I guess I am at least a little Americanized…

that’s some heavy stuff!

After all this Cupcake practicing, I need a new challenge. I want to practice to make pretty layer cakes. The cake was so moist and soft and tender like a real American chocolate cake has to be. It’s probably the best I ever made.

The filling is just simply wipped cream and so is the “frosting” around. The top is melted chocolate with hazelnut meal.

You can find the recipe for the cake here.

Chocolate Cake

* Butter, for greasing the pans (of course I used lactose free margarine)
* 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
* 2 cups sugar
* 3/4 cups good cocoa powder
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* 1 cup lactose free buttermilk, shaken
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
* 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* 1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter 2 (8-inch) round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pans.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.

Spring is here and I will definitely make more of these precious cakes!

delicious, sticky, chewy, and so sweet it crawls into your socks…

I baked those goodies yesterday in the afternoon and planed to have my first photo shoot of this year again on the balcony, today in the morning. After I was done I couldn’t resist any longer and did eat one right away. I made the lemon syrup, too. Hmm…It’s worth it! The cake is nice moist and the dessicated coconut gives it a very chewy consistency. The syrup on top makes it irresistible.

Good morning sunshine! Good morning Lemon! A lemony good morning!

Coconut Lemon Cake (by Donna Hay)

Ingredients:

• 125g (4oz) butter or lactose free margarine
• 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups dessicated coconut
• 1 cup flour (sifted)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Lemon Syrup

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup shredded lemon rind

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit (160 Celsius).

Place the butter, lemon rind and sugar in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until creamy. Add the eggs and beat well. Fold through the coconut, flour and baking powder. Pour the mixture in a 8 in (20cm) round cake tin lined with baking paper or use paper lined muffin forms (will make about 18). If you make a cake, bake for 45 minutes. If you make cupcakes, it’ll take about half the time ca.20 minutes.

To make the syrup, place the sugar, lemon juice and rind in a saucepan over low heat and stir until sugar is dissolved. Allow to boil for 5-7 minutes or until syrupy.

Pour half of the hot syrup over the hot cake in the tin. The rest of it when serving, as desired.

With that cake you bake yourself some sunshine!

for a little 2 year old Miss and her party guests.

I’ve been asked to make a birthday cake for a friend of mine. It was her daughters second birthday. And since a two year old doesn’t care too much about a certain theme for her birthday cake (I am talking about the always favorite princess, cartoon character or cars, dinosaurs, whatever they want when they get older) my first thought was Sprinkles in all colors!!!
And so I did. Vanilla Cake with Vanilla – hint of Lemon Frosting, stuffed with Blueberries.
Sweet and Sprinkles Sprinkles Sprinkles. And M&M’s.

I used the recipe for the Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes you can find here and the basic Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting you can find here and added some lemon zest to it.
I made a layer with Blueberries. Just cooked them(about 3 cups) with a couple tablespoons brown sugar and one tablespoon lemon juice and zest.

With some left over batter I baked mini cupcakes. Frosted and decorated with, of course! Sprinkles and mini M&M’s and put them on toothpicks on the cake.

The kids loved it, that made me happy.

fall here we come!

It’s been 2 weeks without posting anything. The reason is the lack of a (good) camera. Of course, I’ve been baking, but just once a week. I kind of needed a break from the first marathon I did here.

Fall is here and I bought my first pumpkin and made a spicy soup out of it. The wind blows really fresh outside so I am looking for something warming. I never made friands before and even after doing them I don’t exactly know what they are, or where they come from. All I know, the recipe always calls for almond meal and lot’s of egg whites. I used very fine ground hazelnuts, because I didn’t have almond meal at home. But the little “cake”, “muffin” turned out really fluffy and light and not to sweet.

The recipe is adapted from here

• ½ cup + ½ tablespoon (75g) all purpose flour, sifted
• 1 ½ cups (210g) icing sugar, sifted
• 1 cup (100g) almond meal (ground almonds)
• 4 egg whites
• 180g unsalted butteror lactose free margarine, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• one big apple, peeled and sliced in pieces, plus some cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.

Butter ten 1/3 cup  capacity fluted pans (I used paper lines for muffins, next time I try without, the cakes stick to the paper too much).
Place the flour, icing sugar and almond meal in a bowl and stir to combine. Make a well in the center, add the egg whites, butter and vanilla and stir well to combine. Divide batter among prepared pans. Stick 3 apple slices in the dough of each and sprinkle the top with cinnamon. Bake for 10-20 minutes or until golden and cooked through. Allow to cool in the pans for 5 minutes then carefully transfer onto a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar before serving, if desired.
Makes about 16. I used 1/3 cup (80ml) capacity muffins pans.

(I am absolutely not happy with this presentation… I will hopefully have access to a good camera soon again….)

That was a good nutty, sweet apple bite.

…super quick and easy!

I love cakes, cookies, cupcakes, everything sweet you can bake and since I have this little Blog here I enjoy making them almost every day. I have a long list of things I want to bake I haven’t tried yet and I am always curious how a new recipe turns out.

But sometimes I just have that little monster in me, knocking on my sweet tooth, saying feed me now!! Feed me with something really sweet and flavorful with a consistency you don’t want to stop chewing on….

Well, I am lactose intolerant and that means for me here in Germany, I can’t just go and get me a cake, a sweet bun, some cookies from the bakery, because nobody sells lactose free stuff…. so I hear that monster knocking and that means to me, let’s bake, quick!!

This banana cake was exactly what I needed.

The recipe is adapted from here.

Ingredients

• 1 cup mashed bananas (about three)
• 1 cup (200 g) sugar
• 1/3 cup (80ml) vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup (120 g) flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 9 inch pan. Mash the bananas and mix in the sugar, oil, and eggs.
Stir in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Pour into the pan and bake, uncovered, about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

I made a sugar glaze with vanilla extract and sprinkled some brown sugar on top.

Can’t hear any monsters anymore, can you?

to start the Wine Festival!

Every year in August we have the wine festival going on downtown. That means all the wine growers sell their wine on a big festival with live music and food. You go there with your friends and sample the wine and eat and talk. Good times..

This cake is also a childhood memory. The Grandmother of my best friend would make it and I always loved it. I found the recipe here from Kristin Donnelly, Food and Wine and it’s definitely a good one. The cake is not too sweet and the balance between the chocolate and the red wine just perfect.

Chocolate Red Wine Cake

Ingredients

2 cups (240 g) flour
¾ cup cocoa powder
1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 sticks (230 g) butter or lactose free margarine, softened
1 ¾ cups (350 g) sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups (300ml) dry red wine

This recipe is for a 12cup bound cake form, I did cut it in half and made a little one.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 Celsius).

Mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt and set aside. Beat the butter and the sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and the Vanilla. Then alternately mix in the flour and the wine until incorporated.

Fill the batter in a greased and floured pan and bake for 45 minutes. Don’t forget to make the toothpick test.
Let cool on a rack and dust with confectioner’s sugar before serving.

I had a great girls night out on the festival this year, we sampled some sparkling wine, they all were delicious…of course