2nd Blogiversary and Cake

A long long time ago ...

... eh ...

... about two years ago I started blogging with Cooking Around the World. Who would have thought I would be still doing it today!? What has happened in those two years? Where have I gotten myself to and where will this be going?
Questions and still more questions. I think what we need right now is not answers, but cake ...

Without a cake we cannot celebrate properly. That is a Sachertorte, originating from a recipe that was created in Austria ... quite some time ago. It's named after Austrian Franz Sacher, who lived in the 1830s. Whatsoever, it's one of the most famous Viennese culinary specialties. In other words, a worthy cake for my 2nd Blogiversary.
I reckon we just need some flowers then ...

Good, now we are ready. So, come along and have a piece of cake ...

Of course, you can imagine that making a Sachertorte is not what you would call a piece o cake, especially when you want to have it looking really stunning with a shiny chocolate cover.
Anyway, I can tell you how I did my version. I adapted the recipe from the book Schokolade (chocolate) from Garant.

Ingredients:
200 g butter
175 g sugar
One tsp. vanilla essence
200 g dark chocolate
200 g whole milk chocolate
2 cl rum
7 eggs
175 g flour
75 g ground almonds
40 g cocoa powder
3 tsp. baking powder
300 g apricot jam

Preparation:
Properly oil a round 24 cm cake tin and preheat the oven to 180 °C.

Cream the butter together with 75 g sugar, the vanilla essence, 75 g of melted dark chocolate, the rum and the 7 egg yolks from those eggs. The egg whites go into a different bowl.

Oh, you yet need a third bowl. Sift in the flour and the cocoa powder. Add the almonds and the baking powder. Mix it through and then fold it into the egg yolk cream.

Over to the egg whites. Whisk them until stiff. Add the remaining 100 g of sugar and whisk it it until it's not grainy anymore. Reminds me of making meringues. Fold the egg whites into the mixture in the first bowl.

Now the batter is ready. Put it into the tin and then bake for 40-50 minutes. You can check with a wooden skewer or a small knife. When it comes out clean, the cake is ready. Remove it from the oven and let it cool down.

Then comes a slightly challenging task, to cut the baked cake into three layers. Do it carefully, we don't want things to fall apart. You might want to use a baking knife or a bread knife. Mark the places where you want to cut that you have layers about the same size. No worries, if you don't. Carefully cut a bit, then insert the knife towards the middle of the cake with the point of the knife first. Without pressure cut around the cake turning the cake all the time, but carefully.

Once you have three pieces you can warm up the apricot jam and push it through a sieve.

Get your bottom layer ready on a cake plate.

Spread one third of the apricot jam on it.

Put the next layer on it. I don't have to mention to be careful, do I. Then apricot jam and then last layer and the remaining apricot jam.

It's time to melt the rest of the chocolate. There has to be a trick with the chocolate as well, but I didn't bother to research that as well this time. I thought it would work out anyway. Whatever the case. Spread the chocolate as evenly on top of the cake and make it stick to the sides, too.

I used some of the chocolate in heart-shaped ice cube moulds. I tossed the ice cube moulds into the freezer - kind of a habit and later on tried to 'glue' the hearts onto the cake.

Well, I wanted the cake to have some kind of decoration on top, but I didn't want to write 'Sacher' on it with chocolate.
With the heart decoration it fits perfectly for JibberJabberUK's first Love Cake challenge. The theme is BAKING WITH PASSION. I reckon, that will do.

I like to share this cake with Cake of the Week, too. The challenge is Baking with spirit. The rum I used was a white one.

Then I have to include this for Tea Time Treats, which is organised by Lavender and Lovage and The Hedgecombers. It can't get any more chocolatey than this.

 

And while I'm in such a good mod now, I add this as well to Emily's Recipe of the Week on A Mummy Too.

Now that we have settled with that, we can go on with the party. I can't get rid of the feeling that we will get by with one cake with all those visitors. At least I wouldn't mind sharing some cake with some of my favourite bloggers. It would really be fun to have them around for tea ... like Dom from Belleau Kitchen, who continues tio conspiry with all his Random Recips or ... the lovely Galina from Chez Maximka, who had invited me for a virtual tea time party before ... or Choclette from the Chocolate Log Blog, who continues to tease me with her wonderful chocolate creations - she wouldn't want to miss this one - or ... Janice from Farmersgirl Kitchen - she could simply tell us some interesting stories or ... Karen from Lavender and Lovage - sorry no herbs in the cake here, but I make sure to include some later - or Fiona from London Unattached, who knows an awful lot of places.  Ah, if I had more space in my little flat I would invite all those on my Blogroll. In fact, I should also update it soon. So, more cake ...

... hm, that is rather a bit like mille feuille with a peanut butter and cream cheese filling. Cheesecake anyone? That is a very delicious one. It took about 24 hours so it was properly set after I had it for 25 minutes in the oven at 90 °C. With some berries it tastes great.

Among other things there is some ricotta, cream cheese, vanilla and lemon in the cheese part. I really had an extensive photo session with that cheesecake. You can check out my Facebook page for more photos from that cake.
Are you enjoying yourself? Should I go on with some facts and stats about the blog? Well, we had one already - two years of blogging. In the last year the number of visitors haven't changed too much, but I don't want to bore you with too much of statistics. You shouldn't trust any statistics, you haven't forged yourself, anyway. Apart from that I already told you in December that I had much fun with cooking underground at my Hawaiian Luau.
Recently I have gotten myself into trying some more sophisticated recipes, like the Floating Islands. I want to keep that up.
Along that line I have made an Egg Yolk and Ricotta Raviolo with Sage and Burned Butter Sauce - Karen, here are the herbs, finally.

You get some lemon zest together with ricotta, salt and pepper in the filling additionally to the egg yolk. In the burned butter sauce you get some lemon juice and obviously sage leaves. Do you know what happens, when you cut into the raviolo? Of course ...

Naturally I  expect to have quite some more delicious food in the months to come. There are still too many things to try around the world. You can see that every month at the Bloggers Around the World challenge, which is taking us to Russia this month. Thank you for coming to my 2nd Blogiversary party. I appreciate all the visitors and all the lovely and encouraging comments. I hope I will continue to see you around here. Now I concentrate on my piece of cake ...

... and ... well then, I'd say I have no other choice but to continue Cooking Around the World ...