Rhubarb-crumble Cake

Earlier this year, I set myself a challenge to tackle the art of baking...much to the delight of my colleagues, who have become spoilt rotten in the process :-). These days, their morning greeting is inevitably accompanied by surreptitious glances to check whether I happen to be carrying any boxes! My suggestion that baking cakes could be done in turns has so far fallen on deaf ears, but truth be told I am glad to have such a willing group of food critics (otherwise I might be tempted to eat all the pies myself!!!).

Here is tomorrow's cake delivery: rhubarb-crumple cake, the perfect way to adapt crumble for day-time eating.

Ingredients: 

For the dough:

25 g of fresh yeast

400 g flour

200 ml milk

80 g sugar 

1 medium-sized egg

80 g unsalted soft butter

salt

For the crumble:

150 g flour

50 g cornflour

100 g roughly chopped almonds

150 g sugar

150 g cold unsalted butter

For the topping:

1 kg rhubarb

2-3 tablespoons of sugar

Preparation: 

1. Place the flour in a large bowl and form a well in the middle. Heat the milk until it's just slightly warm. In a glass, mix the yeast, the sugar and about 1/4 of the milk until all ingredients are dissolved. Pour the yeast mixture and the remaining milk in the well, adding the egg and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Start mixing the ingredients using a fork, working from the inside to the outside. Once the dough starts coming together, add the butter and, using your hands this time, start kneading the dough until it is smooth but still slightly sticky (this is best done on a well-floured work surface). Return the dough to the bowl, cover and allow to rest for 1 hour in a warm draft-free spot. 

2. Place all ingredients for the crumble in a second bowl. Rub the butter, flour, sugar and almonds together until you have achieved that crumbly consistency. Place in the fridge. 

3. When the dough has risen, deflate it and place it in the middle of a baking tray (either well greased or covered with some baking paper). Spread the dough (using your hands) to the edges of the tray. The dough is going to be quite elastic, so you are going to have to put in a bit of an effort :-)

4. Wash and (where needed) peel the rhubarb and cut it into 5-7cm long sticks. Place these on the dough (pressing down slightly) until it's entirely covered. Sprinkle with the sugar and allow to rest for another 15 mins before adding the crumble. 

5. The cake goes into the pre-heated oven (180°C) for 35 mins. Then turn on the grill and allow to bake for an additional 5 mins until the crumble has that lovely golden color. 

Recipe adapted from: www.essen-und-trinken.de

Super easy, super delicious cake

A contribution I wrote before breaking my finger while SWIMMING!

When I cook, I rarely stick to a recipe 100%....and while I have had the odd mishap, this method usually works out for me. It's a method, however, which becomes a problem when baking. Baking requires total and complete adherence to the recipe, only the very experienced can hope to deviate without disastrous consequences. So in my quest to master at least a basic level of baking skills, my biggest challenge has been my knack for merely "skimming through" recipes, rather than reading them in detail. But I am getting better at it.

My latest creation is a sour-cream cake, which is ridiculously easy to make and incredibly delicious. It's not something you want to eat while on a quest for the perfect bikini body, but when it comes to comfort food it doesn't really get any better than this. 

Ingredients: 

4 eggs
1 cup* of vegetable oil 
2 cups of sugar
1 cup of sparkling water
3 cups of flour
1 packet of baking powder
600ml heavy whipping cream**
600gr sour cream
2 packets of vanilla sugar
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
6 tablespoons of sugar + 3 tablespoons of cinnamon

* The measurements are given in "cups" here...by which I don't mean the American "cup", but an actual tea of coffee mug.

** In order to ensure that the sour-cream/cream mass is stable, use a whipping cream with as high a fat content as possible. Alternatively, you can use a special powder to stabilize whipping cream (Sahnesteif in Germany).

Preparation:

1. First you need to make the dough. For this, simply mix the eggs, the oil and 2 cups of sugar in a large bowl. Add the sparkling water and then the flour and baking powder. The dough might seem quite liquid, but this is how you want it to be. 

2. Line a deep baking tray with baking paper and pour in the batter, spreading evenly. Bake at 175°C for 25-30 mins. Remove from the oven and allow to cool off completely.

3. In the meantime, whip the cream together with the vanilla sugar aiming for as firm a consistency as you can get. Carefully fold in the sour cream and the lemon juice and evenly cover the cake with this mixture. Place in the fridge overnight (don't cover the cake!). 

4. Shortly before you want to serve your cake, sprinkle generously with the sugar-cinnamon mixture.

Chocolate-Vanilla Cake with Cherries

In German this cake is called "Donauwellen", for which there just isn't a good translation. But despite the admittedly not very inspired title, I strongly recommend you try this. It takes a bit of patience to make, but if someone as notoriously impatient as me can do this, so can you. It consists of two layers of cake, filled with cherries and covered with buttercream and some dark chocolate coating. Yum!

Ingredients: 

1 large glass of cherries
530gr soft butter (my arteries are clogging up just writing this, but it's sooooo good!)
200gr sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 eggs
350gr flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
500ml milk
2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
300gr chocolate coating (dark)
1 pack of vanilla custard powder (for 500ml milk)


Preparation: 

1. Bring 450ml of milk to the boil in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat and stir in the custard powder, mixing well. Cover the top of the custard with some clingfilm and set aside to cool.

2. In a large bowl, mix 250gr of butter with 200gr sugar and the vanilla extract until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time. Mix the flour and the baking powder in a bowl and add slowly to the butter-egg-sugar mixture. Whisk in the remainder of the milk and spread half of the dough on a baking tray (at least 2cm deep) covered with some baking paper. Mix the rest of the dough with the cocoa power and spread on top of the first layer. Drain the cherries and spread them evenly across the cake before placing the whole thing in the oven (175°C) for 30 mins. Remove and allow to cool.

3. For the buttercream, whisk 250gr of soft butter until smooth, then add the custard one spoonful at a time. Spread over the cake and place in the oven for at least one hour. 

4. Carefully melt the chocolate with 30gr of butter. Wait 10 mins or so until the mixture has cooled off slightly, then spread over the cake. Return to the fridge for another hour until the chocolate has set. 

I usually keep this cake in the fridge but recommend that you take it out half an hour before you want to eat it, to give it some time to warm up.


Recipe adapted from: www.lecker.de