Travelling to St. Louis and Gooey Butter Cake

Now that went well, did it? Rather not! Or did it? Anyway, a lot depends on your attitude. As to that I rather have a negative one, although I am trying my best  to get rid of it. On that thought, as long as you are still alive and well, you should be happy and consider things to be well.
As to the global picture ... well, this isn't the place nor the time to expound this. After all, this blog isn't called "Problems Around the World", but rather "Cooking Around the World". For that, right here, right now, I am not available for talking about what is going on in this crazy world ... and I don't mean good crazy.
Talking about good crazy would bring us a bit closer to the style of this blog. You haven't read anything good crazy lately around here. Well, that's not my fault, is it?
That won't get us anywhere, looking for the guilty one, who's fault it is. Rather we want to look ahead and concentrate on getting out something positive.
On that note, let me ask about your opinion regarding butter. Do you like it? How would you care for extensive use of it in a cake and then ... call it gooey butter cake?
I don't know about you, but for my ears this has a quite positive ring to it
Now it seems that the US city of St. Louis, Missouri, seems to be a bit famous for its gooey butter cake. Well, there is only one way to find out about it. Does this already sound like bullwhip and fedora hat again to you?
So come along as we not only cook (or rather bake) around the world, but as we actually travel around the world ...

Millenium Falcon Salted Caramel Cake

May the fourth be with you!

Again another year has rolled passed. While I don’t care much about any kind of holiday and special cooking and baking for it, I like May the 4th – Star Wars Day, well I like the pun on the phrase “May the force be with you!” Fine, I liked the movies, too.

But that’s it. Ah, well, when I have the chance I bake something … and I reckon, I will go to the cinema to watch episode VIII in December.

However, I am not going to send a model of a spacecraft into space in order to get some attention. Hm …!?! Maybe I could sent a cake of a spacecraft into space …

Anyway, during the weekend I was talking to a friend and he suggested I could maybe make a Death Star cake. Nah, that would be too much work. What about some cupcakes. We arranged some batter and added green food colouring. After baking, the idea was to add some marzipan to make them look like Yoda heads. Well, the cupcakes didn’t turn out that green and the homemade marzipan not that good for modelling, although it tasted very yummy due to the addition of Amaretto.

Then I got an idea for May the 4th …

A rough sketch of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars that would help me the next day to build a Millennium Falcon cake.

We would need a sponge and some sort of filling or topping. I did some more pondering and researching …

I wanted something with caramel and cream cheese. A quick look at the basics again for achieving it and we are off to shopping. Maybe a marzipan cover would be lovely.

Shopping ready! Now, let’s go for it …

Ingredients:
Sponge:
225 g butter
225 g sugar
4 eggs
225 g (self-rising) flour
1 tsp baking powder
Vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
Salted Caramel Sauce:
200 g brown sugar
85 g butter
120 ml cream
Vanilla extract
1 tsp fleur de sel (or sea salt)
Buttercream:
225 g butter
115 g cream cheese
Vanilla extract
The salted caramel sauce
400 g icing sugar

Method:
Don’t worry, the sponge is just a standard sponge as you might use for a Victoria Sponge cake as well. So, if you don’t feel like Star Wars, have a normal round one, but …

We feel like Star Wars now. After all, John Williams is assisting us through the whole process. So turn up the volume of your speakers. Yes, it would be best this post comes with a soundtrack,but if you want to hear anything, you have to put on the music yourself.

Fine, “Bake we must!”

Take a bowl, add the butter and the sugar for the sponge and get whisking … until it’s fluffy.

Yeah, I don’t know whether that is fluffy, but that’s the way I’m gonna use it. Crack one egg into it. Beat it. Crack another egg. Beat it again. Next egg. More beating. Last egg. Finish beating. Add the vanilla extract.

Now sift in the flour and the baking powder. Don’t forget a pinch of salt. Incorporate everything to get a smooth batter.

For the baking the oven is heated up to 180 °C.

Line a baking tray with baking parchment and spread the batter on it …

Like this it goes into the oven for 25 minutes.

At this point you could be tempted to start the salted caramel sauce. Don’t do it! see where you can tidy up things while the sponge is baking.

Remove the sponge from the oven and give it time to cool down.

Now you can feel free to start the salted caramel sauce. Get yourself a saucepan and add the brown sugar and cover it all with water. Place the remaining ingredients for the sauce nearby …

Put on the heat … full power … energise!

The sauce seems a bit tricky. Obviously, you can’t see when the sugar starts to get an amber colour, for it already has such. Hear it is, where you need to use the force, you need to feel it. Well, you don’t have to close your eyes for the next step, but if you want it, go for it.

Reach out with your senses and feel the caramel getting ready as the liquid is bubbling away. You will sense a change in the bubbling or a tremor in the force …

When that happens, reduce the heat from full to medium, get a wooden spoon into your right hand … eh … or left hand, if you prefer that. Start stirring.

Throw in the butter. Stir and watch it melt away.

Pour in the cream and watch it distribute, stirring all the time.

Add the vanilla extract and the fleur de sell (sea salt), while you continue stirring.

At this point, I turned off the heat and continued stirring with the remaining heat until the caramel sauce stopped bubbling. Then set it aside for cooling.

Back to the sponge. I cut it into half and placed one piece above the other to follow my Millennium Falcon blueprint to cut it out of the sponge.

Hm … it looked … okay …

That will do. In order to be able to proceed here, we need the buttercream ready.

Another bowl, some more whisking and we are ready …

Add the butter and the cream cheese to the bowl and whisk it together. There goes another bit of vanilla extract.

The salted caramel sauce isn’t that hot anymore, so we can spoon it into the bowl as well and mix it in thoroughly.

Bit by bit we add the 400 g icing sugar. That sounds like awful a lot. No worries! Combine it all well. Ah, that looks like awful a lot of buttercream. Fine, we are going to use it all up anyway.

Spread a layer of … let’s say one third of it … on the bottom sponge …

Carefully place the top sponge … eh … on top of it. No big deal, huh?

Use some of the sponge cuttings to create a satellite dish, a round object placed on a wedge.

It’s time to use up that remaining buttercream and cover the whole cake in it. Give it your best to get the cream on. If you have any cream in undesired places, I’m afraid you have to remove it and eat it up. Well, that’s what I did.

Hm, you get an idea of the Millennium Falcon at this point, but we still can do better with some chocolate buttons and a bit chocolate from a decorating pen …

That’s it. In order for my cake decorating skills to improve, I reckon I have to do a few more cakes. Well … if I get any ideas, that is.

When I was younger … much younger … I never had a Millennium Falcon model, but now I have a Millennium Falcon cake and … the only thing can do with it, is eat it up. However, considering the over 500 g of sugar and the amount of sugar in it, I guess, I have to enlist the help of others to deal with the cake. Otherwise I’ll have a BIG problem.

So, if you are i the neighbourhood anytime soon …

Well, I had a model of a TIE-fighter once. I already thought of making some TIE-fighters with cookies and marzipan or even a marzipan X-Wing, but … that would have been a lot harder.

Speaking of marzipan, there was no room for a marzipan cover here, so I definitely have to make some more cake involving that soon.

For the time being, though, I wish you a lovely day and … if you feel like it … share some of your Star Wars Day creations in below in the comment section.

Otherwise, have a delicious Salted Caramel cake …

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Switzerland - Engadine Nut Pie V2.0

There is a calendar on the wall in the office. It has one large and several small pictures on it for every month. It's Switzerland. What do we see on the pictures? Mountains, trains and cows ... they come to my mind.
Now, what comes to your mind, when thinking about Switzerland. Chocolate? Oh, yes, that's a good one. Swiss bank account? Nah, I don't have sufficient funds to think about that. Neutrality? Well, that doesn't sound to bad. So I try to keep that in mind.
A lot of people, when they travel to Switzerland to the Graubünden area, take the Engadine Nut Pie back home as a 'souvenir'. So far I only have been to the other side of lake Constance, so I could at least have a look at Switzerland from across the lake ... kind of.
Nevertheless, I like to have a take on the Engadine Nut Pie and bring you my version, that is the Engadine Nut Pie V2.0. Not that this is essentially an improved version, but it has some modifications to fit my image of Switzerland in my mind.

I had a look at the basic recipe on the tourist website for Graubünden. Then I went on to modify ...
You know, it's quite easy when you have bits of walnuts from a bag ready for use, but when you have to work yourself through closed nuts and crack them all open to get 250 g of chopped nuts ... eh ... well I stopped 100 g short. I checked also some other recipes. One stated 400 g of walnuts and another one had also some plum jam in it. I looked further and looked, but I couldn't find a version with chocolate in it, but ... come on, Switzerland ... I wanted chocolate in it.
Accordingly, here we go ...

Ingredients:
300 g whole wheat flour (somehow most of the other flour was gone in my pantry)
150 g sugar
150 g butter
2 small eggs
1 pinch of salt

300 g sugar
A few tbsp. of water
150 g walnuts
50 ml cream
100 g plum jam
100 g chocolate, into pieces

Method:
Take the flour, the 150 g sugar, the butter, the eggs and a pinch of salt, throw them into a bowl and have some pastry from it. You work it out. Looks like shortcrust pastry anyway. Nicely bring all the ingredients together.
Have your cake tin ready and put a bit more than half of the dough on the bottom of your oiled cake tin, having the dough going slightly upwards at the side. Spread the plum jam onto the bottom.
Give the remaining 300 g of sugar with the water into a pan at full heat and have some caramel going. Make sure not to stir. When the sugar goes brown and the caramel is coming, toss in the nuts and add the cream. Now you are allowed to stir.
Pour the nut caramel over the plum jam. Afterwards throw the chocolate over it, too.
Finally you have to manage to put the remaining pastry over as a lid. I wasn't very good at it.

Yes, it looked like this after baking. So, put the cake tin into the cold oven and turn up the heat to maximum. After ten minutes reduce the heat to 180 °C and let the pie in the oven for another 35 minutes.
As you see on my photos, the Engadine Nut Pie, I made didn't look that lovely, but ... oh, did it taste delicious. You just have to imagine that touch of plum, the nut caramel and the chocolate. I loved it.

Fine, after the Engadine Nut Pie comes from the oven, you have somehow remove it from the tin and also allow time for cooling down. Then you can enjoy it, too.

What now? I reckon, you had sufficient time to think about what comes to your mind when thinking about Switzerland ...

Look out for more World Cup countries cooking ...

Life, Darkness, Randomness, Chocolate ... Apple Shortcake with Chocolate Chip Cream

I made it to the weekend again. Pah ... what's the use of it, nothing is ever going to happen. Fine, yes, fine, you are right ... then you have to make it happen yourself ... and so I did. The evening had already advanced a bit and so I took my bike for a right around town ... village ... hamlet ... whatever. You can imagine that would be quite some fun ... darkness ... winter ... bicycle-tour ... idiot me! First I went down the way past the office and after that unknown territory when it comes to the bicycle. Luckily I had my cap and gloves along. On the minus side I didn't bother to take my glasses along. Not seeing where you are going with the bike can give you some kicks of adrenaline from time to time. Anyway, the route went up and down, the little dog wasn't hit by a bicycle and the fact that I am writing things here right now proves that things didn't go that bad after all.
I reckon, even stupid exercise at night would entitle me for a sweet treat today ...
Ah, I need something anyway ... 

Besides all that I already had planned to join two lovely blog challenges this month ... Random Recipes and We Should Cocoa. In fact they have morphed into one challenge kind of for this very month of February. You will see ...

Indy's Mysterious Daim Chocolate Apple Cake

It's about time again I get out my hat. Indeed, that might be useful in this kind f weather we have at this time of the year. However, it's not just the hat, I'm getting out and it's for a totally different reason ...

... it's for baking! There are still so many baking adventures out there, I better get going for it and get in the right frame of mind for it. So, I take my bullwhip and whip up some kind of mysterious cake ... with Daim chocolate and apples ...

Are you ready for the adventure?

Catch my Drift - Surfer Cake

Have you seen the 2012 Australian movie Drift? Well, it's about surfing and ... hm ... also about courage and the will to survive against all odds.
Hm, at least the last part is fitting: "survive against all odds". So far I am doing good. About surfing, no I can't do it. No matter which direction I choose, there is no coast nearby, where I could even think about learning to surf. No, not the internet, that's not so much fun.
Anyway, doing some kind of sports in the water would be good for me, I suppose. Unless ...

Maybe I really should think about a change of location some day ... at least one can dream. Yes, it has been there for already quite some time. That could be a reason, why I watch such movies.
Anyway, we are not here for surfing today, but for baking. I hope, you catch my drift on that cake ...

Failure? Blue Cheese Chocolate Cake

"Sorry seems to be the hardest word". True, it is not so easy to say "sorry". Maybe it's also due to the fact that it is not so easy to admit a failure. There is rather the tendency to blame things on others or on bad circumstances. Nobody is happy to take the blame.
When was the last time you admitted a fault or a failure? You can't remember? No worries.
I guess we are having some chocolate cake first of all.

Seafood Diet - Ultimate Caramel Chocolate Delight

Have you ever heard someone say: "I only have to look at food and I put on weight."? That totally applies to me. If I see food, I put on weight. Maybe that's due to the diet I am on ... kind of. It's a seaefood diet. Of course, if I see food, I am going to eat it. I'm not having it as decoration. Along that line, the following will do a devastating job. This wasn't a reference to it not being decorative. Let someone else judge. We are talking of putting on weight and my Ultimate Caramel Chocolate Delight.

It has it all ... lots of sugar, cream, butter and of course chocolate. They will do their part. No doubt about it.
In a previous post, I had a Hazelnut Chocolate Custard Caramel Cake. I warned you beforehand the quest isn't over yet and we have to tread further upon that path. You might notice that the recipe is quite similar, but then also different.
Let us speak no further about ... eh ... things. So, without any further ado I bring you my Ultimate Caramel Chocolate Delight.

Ingredients (he he he ... you see what I mean):
200 g flour
100 g brown sugar
200 g melted butter
100 g rolled oats
300 g sugar
50 ml water
100 ml cream
100 g hazelnuts
200 g dark chocolate
50 g butter

Method (not listening to any kind of warnings):
Have you compared it to the previous recipe and noticed the changes already? No? I show you now ... kind of.
First we go for the base with the flour, brown sugar, melted butter and the rolled oats (which are new here). Do a thorough job in putting these together for the dough. Press the base into a cake tin that is prepared with baking parchment. I used a round cake tin, but will use a rectangular one next time.
Bake the base for 20 minutes at 180 °C. After that you might think about allowing some time for it to cool down. A good thing, we are not going to use the oven anymore in the course of this recipe. We did so last time, though.
While that cooling business is going on, we devote our time to what has to be done: the caramel. Put the 300 g of sugar together with the water on the heat. Hopefully it will just go brownish without burning. Allow time for some patience. In the rare case you don't have it, learn it. That's a useful quality you will need again and again in life.
Don't burn the caramel. Before that happens, add the hazelnuts and the cream. You will love that noise, when the cream hits the burning hot caramel. 
Make sure it all mixes well and looks thick. In case it doesn't so right away, I guess you can not avoid, but have to let it on heat and stir it a bit. At one point, though, it should be enough. Things only need a certain amount of stirring. It's like in real life.
Now you should pour the caramel onto the cake base ... if we want to call it a cake. Oh ... it was the original plan, but ... just read on ...
Should I say now: "Allow time for cooling."? Eh ... no ... I don't like to say it. We have work to do. After all we want the Ultimate Caramel Chocolate Delight. Nobody is going to help me finish the job after all.
At this very point our attention is drawn to some beautiful and yet inconspicuous dark chocolate. We need some heat again. I have my special way to melt chocolate and you for sure have your own. So don't let us talk further about it. Fine, I only need to mention that you melt the chocolate together with 50 g of butter.
Once you get this shiny liquid chocolate ready, let it cover the caramel. I would say now: "Allow ...", but ... just make sure the chocolate gets solid again. A fridge might do the trick.

Now have a closer look at this. From what you see, it might be some kind of cake. Let us get our weapon ready and attack it by cutting out a slice.

Well, it tastes great. For me this is my Ultimate Caramel Chocolate Delight. I will try no further in that direction. I'm going to use my time for other food endeavours. What about cheese and chocolate now? Or maybe some other kind of food that will not be so quick in aiding you in putting on more weight. Whatsoever, I will see ... you will see ... we will see.
Back to the original topic.
However, I would not so much eat this as a cake, but rather as a kind of Caramel Chocolate bar. Or just have it as small rectangular slices like shown in the first photo. That way maybe we are not completely lost when we see it ... and consequently eat it - seefood diet! I don't know what you expected when you read the title. Another option would have been: Seafood diet: eat everything, but seafood.

Fresh from the garden to the oven: Rhubarb Cardamom Crumble Cake

When I started my tiny garden patch I set out to do some experimenting (always the same) with this and that. You don't have to think to hard that this would not deliver much food for a lot of dishes. I tried potatoes once and ... had just enough for one small potato salad. I had beans. Well ... eh ... I didn't even get as many as to count the years of my life so far with. I just got 37. Whatever I am going to do with them. I still don't know.
Of course there are some herbs growing in that garden patch. I can have thyme any time I want. Right now it is flowering and the chives as well. Then I got lavender, rosemary, oregano and at the moment a bit of coriander. The mint refuses to die. On a regular basis it disappears at the end of the year only to return the following year.
Strawberries! Yes, there are strawberries, too. Now you imagine it is quite cramped on my tiny garden patch with so many different things growing, but ... well ... eh ... there are only quite few strawberries and I can have one or two when I check the garden.
Last year, though, I acquired a rhubarb plant. By the end of the year I had the feeling I managed to kill it, but this spring it was growing well again. I guess, it's still rhubarb season or it will end soon. However, this rhubarb plant is really doing a good job. I wasn't just able to eat once from it. No, not even just twice. Careful thinking brings me to five times and I could still live with it to take something from it a sixth time. The rhubarb is really doing a good job. One job, it accomplished quite well, a cake ... a Rhubarb Cardamom Crumble Cake.
I got some stalks fresh from the garden and then ...

Ingredients:
4-5 stalks of rhubarb, cut into chunks
1 tbs fruit sugar
1 tsp cardamom
125 g butter, soft or softer or even melted
125 g sugar
1 tbs vanilla sugar
4 eggs
250 g flour
2 tsp baking powder
125 g butter
90 g sugar
100 g flour

Method:
Mix the rhubarb chunks with the fruit sugar and cardamom.
Then prepare the dough. Cream the eggs with the 125 g sugar and vanilla sugar. Add the soft butter and flour and combine to make the dough for the cake. Spread it on a baking tray prepared with baking parchment.
Start heating up the oven to 180 °C.
Distribute the rhubarb on top of the dough on the baking tray.
Now make the crumbles with the remaining butter sugar and flour. Put it all in a bowl and massage it together with your finger tips. If you enough of the massage for the crumble you might want to get someone to give you a massage. Maybe you manage. However, wait for that until you have crumbled the crumbles over the rhubarb on the cake.
Put the tray into the oven for 30-40 minutes. You know when the cake is ready.
While the cake is in the oven it might be an ideal opportunity to get that massage I just previously mentioned. Sometimes I like to administer a massage, but it's quite difficult to do that properly on my own shoulders. No worries. There are some things to endure and to live with. Massage also has only a relative value, though it was quite beneficial for the crumbles. 
Speaking of it, don't forget that your cake is ready. Remove it from the oven and plan to eat it ... enjoy it.

At the time I was doing this cake I asked around on the net what to do with rhubarb. By the way, what is your favourite way of having rhubarb?
I got one nice response of doing a crumble with rhubarb and apples. I had to try, too. Maybe I find time to let you know about the results. Of course only, if you appreciate that ... really?! 
Finally, before I devote myself to do other things I leave this post for Javelin Warrior's Made with Love Mondays. After all the rhubarb went just from the garden to the oven. Well, you read how I treated it nicely in between.

Originally, I wanted to add this post to the Simple and in Season blog event from Ren Behan. She mentioned the challenge opens at the 1st of every month, but I couldn't find the post to enter it. Now I found out the post was open a bit later. So I hope, it's still fine to enter.

Take care!

Really! Honestly!

I hope you are doing well and enjoy life to any extend possible and decently. 

Treat the people around you nicely, especially those you love. For you don't know how long you still have them around and can do this.

Sometimes you get just one chance to do things right ... so make sure not to mess it up.

Hope to see you again with some sun on the face and in the heart ...

From the Cake Lab: Hazelnut Chocolate Custard Caramel Cake

I should have used cashews. That would have made the whole thing a CCCCC - a Cashew Chocolate Custard Caramel Cake. However, now we deal with it as things are. Hazelnut Chocolate Custard Caramel Cake is just fine. Anyway, the hazelnuts are doing a fab job. I simply had to do it. There was this experimenting mood again. That good spirit, which brings me into a good mood and sometimes something lovely to eat. Let's see whether it worked out this time again.

Ingredients:
200 g whole wheat flour
100 g brown sugar
200 g melted butter
100 g chopped hazelnuts
500 ml chocolate custard
300 g sugar
50 ml water
50 g butter
200 ml cream
A splash brown rum

Method:
I'm trying to combine a few things I read or saw elsewhere. You have to get some ideas somehow.
We start with the base of the cake. Mix the flour with the brown sugar, melted butter and the chopped hazelnuts. You still might try to use cashews, if you like. I won't try. That's not because I don't like cashews, but ... I ... eh ... did something else.
Get yourself the usual round cake tin, lightly oil it and then put in some baking parchment. If you want to make even more sure, oil the baking parchment as well. You never know.
Press the base of the cake onto the baking parchment in the cake tin. It's best not to be fussy and use your hands and just go for it. Level it out all evenly and chuck the tin into the pre-heated oven and bake it for 20 minutes at 180 °C. By the end of that you should have some chocolate custard ready.
Cover the base of the cake with the chocolate custard ad return to the oven for another 10 minutes.

Now it's time for a break. Let the cake cool down completely. That may take a while ...
Just before you think you are ready, we go for the caramel. Somehow I use to make caramel quite often these days. The idea for the following I got during my Christine & Christian adventures and some caramelised bananas. Don't worry, if you wonder what has become of Christine & Christian. It will continue.
However, back to our cake business. We start with the sugar and the water in a pot with high heat. Patiently watch the bubbling and sizzling until the sugar caramelises and starts to turn brown. At this point pour in the cream and the rum. Then throw in the butter and start stirring. Do that for a while until things have calmed down a bit. Reduce the heat to medium for that.
Continue to cook until the caramel something slightly thickens. Are you ready? Pour he caramel sauce kind of thing over the chocolate custard on the cake and spread it out.

It went slightly a bit different as I had imagined. The caramel went solid quite quickly. So working with a spatula wasn't really satisfying.
Cutting the cake into pieces wasn't that easy either. The cover cracks quite easily. You can imagine that a piece of cake has quite some energy in it, for which you really need some time to burn it or use it up. Gladly I hadn't to eat the cake all by myself. I could spread the love and share.
What were the reactions? Delicious, lovely, disgusting. Well, the disgusting part was only because the slices were cut so large and you really can not manage to eat a whole giant piece of that cake. Well, I can, but not everyone is that strong.
In other words the cake is quite sweet. If you like that, then you need a Hazelnut Chocolate Custard Cake. Whatsoever! Although I liked the cake, I wasn't finished yet with achieving my ultimate caramel delight. 

The quest still goes on. Therefore watch out for more cake experimenting from the cake lab. In fact I have been doing quite some baking lately. So I guess you have to manage with a few more cakes. 
If you have any caramel suggestions for me, I'm happy for it! See thee!

Bookmarked Recipe: Chocolate Guinness Cake

You know and I know it as well, that you don't have as much time as you would like to have to read through all the interesting blog posts around and read also new blogs. At times I read only those catching my interest already with the title.
The next step: trying things you read on other blogs. While I wouldn't limit it to those, the recipes I tried - on the average - where mostly those that contain chocolate in some form. Tricky!
There were times I even managed to try a recipe that I have just read. So, it's like going from computer to kitchen and go for it. That's good.
Sometimes, though, things are not that easy. A recipe I would have tried right away was the Chocolate Guinness Cake, JibberJabberUK wrote about.
When I first read it, I was short of one ingredient. So the cake would have looked like that ...

Looking like that wouldn't be a problem in itself, but I wanted to go for the whole thing. 
Due to this, I first had to get some cream cheese. Obviously, without it the cake wouldn't be complete.
Some people to whom I talked about a chocolate Guinness cake shrank back at the thought of beer in a cake. However, for those experimenting regularly in the kitchen and not being afraid of trying new things, you know that it works perfectly and gives a rich intense chocolate flavour. I liked that.
Now back to the baking. As I was shopping for food one day, I remembered I need cream cheese. So I bought a pack. 
Finally I was getting ready to do the cake. Proper planning and shopping would have been better. I didn't have the yogurt mentioned in the recipe. What now? I replaced it with milk that got a splash of lemon. I thought that might do the trick. I didn't notice anything negative afterwards.
The other fact hitting me was, that while I got some cream cheese, it was just a little bit of half what I needed. Consequently the cake ended up like this ...

I got a bit of icing training, but somehow it should have been more. No matter how it looked like now, it was absolutely worth trying that recipe. So, why don't you head over to JibberJabberUK and try it, too.
As we have come nearly to the close of this post I add it to the April Bookmarked Recipes over at Tinned Tomatoes.

For sure there will be more recipes worth trying ...

Torta de Almendras for #BloggersAroundTheWorld

"Better days are coming for you ..." Those are the words coming from the speakers of my stereo right this moment where I start writing this together. I hope so!
On the other hand ... ('... four fingers and a thumb' - a friend used to say) ... if I would trust the weather forecast, all this needs to remain a dream for the distant future ...
Well, I don't even need a weather forecast to tell me things, I can already gather it from the calender that winter is just around the corner. It's just a matter of time before it happens ... (don't even like to think about it) ...
I already asked my doctor to prescribe me some sun, but it was to no avail, although I guess it would be cheaper than the other things he is prescribing me. Well, you can't argue with an expert ...
As to the sun for a few days now it's just elusive, but hope isn't ready to die yet. The same holds true for me, but I shall rather say that the situation isn't that bad altogether (... but enough already).

It's time to connect to our subject: Spain ... I would connect that directly with sun. Again memories come up of a distant warmth, memories of Barcelona, memories of Mallorca.
At least there is still the licor de almendra in the bar. We can work with that.
A word for caution though: alcohol is no solution, but then again, no alcohol isn't either.
Do not be worried, though, we are just using it for our Torta de Almendras - almond tart.
It seems to be very popular in Andalusia ... at least that is what my Spanish cook book Spanish Cooking from Cornelia Rosales de Molino claims.
I adapted the recipe a bit ... hm ... maybe a bit more and that not only to accomodate my licor de almendra.

Here we go ... If we cannot have the sun, we at least are having some pieces of Torta de Almendras ...

Ingredientes:
For the short crust pastry:
200 g flour
60 g sugar
100 g butter
1 egg
1 tbs milk
Pinch of salt
Few splashes of lemon juice

For the almond filling:
150 g ground almonds (if you ground your almonds yourself, you might get an even better aroma)
4 eggs
60 g sugar
4 tbs licor de almendra (or similar)
Zest of one lemon
Pinch of salt

Some sliced almonds for topping

Elaboración:
What shall I say? Oh, yes, of course, how to prepare the cake.
We start with the short crust pastry by carefully kneading together all it's ingredients. Yes, that's all that is to it. Shape the ready dough to a ball and (don't play ball with it) place it into the fridge for about half an hour.
I went to the dentist during that time period, which sadly took me longer then that just mentioned half hour.
On with the almond filling. No, you don't get that one at a dentist! I didn't get any other filling either. Nevertheless, a visit to the dentist is in the lower section of my top 1000000.
Almond filling! Back on track!
Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. Then cream the egg yolks with the sugar and add the ground almonds and the licor afterwards. Don't forget the lemon zest.
We give our attention to the egg whites now. Add a pinch of salt. Now it's time to get them stiff. Either, you let out all you aggressions and beat them that way with a hand whisk or ... you use an electrical one and safe your energy.
As I didn't make it to my exercise at the gym this week (naughty boy) I had to go for the manual method ... oh, that feels so good. Really? Whatever!
Carefully (again) fold in the beaten egg whites into the almond mix.
Heat up your oven to 220°C. 
Then roll out your dough to fit it to an approximately 26 cm round cake tin. Don't forget to remove the dough from the fridge first for doing that.
Once the dough is in the tin, which you hopefully greased and papered before, make sure the dough goes a bit upwards towards the borders of the tin. Then pour over the almond mix, toss over some extra sliced almonds and then transfer your tin to the oven for 30 minutes.
Keep an eye on the cake after about half the time. If it gets too dark, it might not help to turn on the light ... Obviously I was referring to the cake. You can protect it with a piece of aluminium foil over it.
After the cake is finished at least leave it some time to cool before you go for it.
The sun might not be conjured up by this, but ... it is at least something.
Anyway, this month it's time for Bloggers Around the World with Spanish recipes or at least Spanish inspired ones.

Maybe a few more recipes will help. Just feel free to join. You are very welcome!
Well, I better have some cake then: Torta de Almendras, to be specific.
The chorizo has to wait until dinner.
Hmmm, maybe because I'm such a winter wimp I should consider changing location ...

Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake

I was thinking ... yes, for a change ... and it came to my mind ... right, I haven't lost it completely ... that there was this lovely blog hop I used to join in once in a while. It is called The Sweet Adventures Blog Hop, in short SABH.
The SABH is presented by Delicieux, The Hungry Australian, Dining With a Stud, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, and 84th & 3rd. I had a look and ... the theme for this month is cake and three veg.
Here I am now, somehow I have to bake a cake with veg in it. The only things that come to my mind are carrots and beetroot in a cake ... that is, a sweet cake. If you have a look at the other blogs later (as would be recommended) you see how inventive others have been.
After some research through various books and taken the ingredients I have at home I came to this: Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake.

Well, lemongrass is used as a herb in the Asian cuisine and you for sure wouldn't call it a veg. What about the veg then? I used carrots. In fact you could call this cake also: Lemongrass-Lime-Ginger-Carrot-Chocolate-Cheesecake.
However, that would not sound as intriguing as the name I came up with friends from the net. I try this cake exclusively for this Blog Hop. I have no experiences with it, as I never did it before. We will see, how things end up. So, let's do Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake. 
Ready, set, bake ...

Ingredients, here they come:
Cake base:
300 g flour
14 g baking powder
Pinch of salt 
1 tbs cocoa powder
50 g brown sugar
100 g of carrots
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger
150 g yogurt
2 tbs of vegetable oil
2 eggs or 4 egg whites

Cheese topping:
400 g cream cheese
100 g sugar
2 eggs
2 tbs milk
1 stalk of lemongrass
Zest of one lime

Chocolate topping:
100 g 25 g of chocolate (I thought I needed more, but I didn't)

How the experimenting went:
First of all we like to concentrate on the cake dough.
I mixed all dry ingredients together in one bowl, that is sifted the flour with the baking powder in, added the brown sugar and cocoa powder, and, not to forget, the pinch of salt.
Then I concentrated on the other ingredients with a different bowl. I put in the yogurt and the oil. Time for grating ...
The carrots and the ginger were grated to the yogurt. The oil and the eggs (or egg whites) joined. A little bit of mixing was due then.
It's time for the contents of both bowls to join forces together. Therefore I added the yogurt mixture to the flour mixture and ... of course ... mixed everything together into a brown and sticky dough.
Already before all that, I had a spring tin form greased. This was ready now to receive the dough ... sometimes, though, I wish afterwards I had used baking paper, but ... I didn't.
With a rubber spatula I tried to level things out and once that was accomplished more or less, the cake went to the oven for 10 minutes at 200°C.

That 10 minutes is exactly the time I wanted to use to prepare the cheese topping.
No need to panic! Really?
We just have to mix all the ingredients for the cheese topping together. Well, not exactly. The lemongrass needs chopping up, as fine as possible. Of course, I didn't forget to grate in the zest of the lime.
10 minutes over. I made it!

I removed the cake from the oven and turned up the heat to 225°C.
Now the cheese topping goes onto the cake ... on top. Oh, oh, it seems quite liquidish. Will it set properly? No worries, we will see.
Back goes the cake into the oven for 15 minutes. Then the heat is reduced to 125°C and the cake stays in the oven for another 30 minutes.

After that the cake needs cooling down and somehow we have to figure out to remove it from the tin without destroying it again ... hard job.
Anyway, I couldn't even wait properly for the cake to cool down. It was getting late. I wanted to eat the cake at a proper cake time ... what nonsense am I talking ... cake time could be anytime.
Whatsoever, I grated some chocolate over the cake. Somehow it melted partways, but i wasn't bothered. After all I had to take some pictures and have cake.

What would you say? Will such a cake taste nice, delicious, wonderful, or whatever good?
It did! You will not be disappointed.
Although now, it was the first time I tried this cake, I can only say, it's worth a try ...

 Now back to the SABH ...

I hope you enjoyed the Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake!

For sure you will enjoy the other entries ...

The Marzipator strikes back - Dorset Apple Cake with Marzipan

Somehow, it could not be avoided. The marzipator strikes back. How could get things get that far again?
Well it didn't start so bad. I ended up with several tons (note: exaggeration) of apples. They came in from different sides. It's the time for apples.
There are many lovely things you can do with them ... that is apart from just eating them as they are. The saying goes: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away!" That would mean I don't see the doctor for quite some time. I don't know whether that works. As far as I know, apples can't prevent accidents.
Anyway, you could use your apples for apple sauce, apple crumble, apple pancakes, apple porridge, many many other things and ... apple cake.
Now things are as follows. For quite some time there is a blog challenge going on. It's about the Best of British food and every month, there is a different region covered. The challenge is sponsored by The Face of New World Appliances and this month it is hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage with the theme Dorset. Have a look at London Unattached from Fiona as well.
Consequently this leaves me no chance as to bake a Dorset Apple Cake. I had a look at a few recipes and they all have some basic things in common. Apple is the obvious, but usually there are also some ground almonds in it.
That is the point were the marzipator and therefore the marzipan comes into play. It has to do with almonds anyway. So why not add some of it to the cake.

See for yourself!

Ingredients:
450 g of apples, peeled, cored and chopped into small pieces (more or less)
Juice of 1 lemon
250 g flour
2 tsp baking powder
250 g butter (I was too lazy to measure, so I decided for a whole package)
150 g brown sugar
50 g ground almonds
100 g marzipan
2 eggs
Some extra sugar mixed together with ground cinnamon

Method (if you want to call it that way):
Well, what to do now. I could simply tell you to just throw all ingredients into a big bowl and mix thoroughly, but ...
Toss the pieces of apple in the juice and let them sit in it.
Sift the flour and the baking powder into a big bowl. Then start kneading in the butter and create some crumbles.
Add the sugar, the ground almonds and the marzipan. Crack open the eggs and release the content into the bowl, not bothering about separating and beating egg whites.
Now is the time to mix or knead it through thorougly. Do it as you want it. I used only my bare hands and did it as messy as possible. However, if you should decide to do the same, make sure you have the usual round (about 25 cm) cake tin greased and ready and the oven going at 180°C.
Naturally, the content of the bowl moves over to the cake tin.

Once managed, it goes into the oven for 50 minutes until it gets nicely browned.
By the way, this is now two cakes in a row, since my last post was about a cake as well. Should I rename to Baking Around the World?
When the cake is ready and you removed it from the oven, let it cool down a bit and then try your best to move it over to a plate without falling apart. I managed kind of.

After the cake was sitting safely on the plate, I simply couldn't resist to sprinkle some magic cinnamon-sugar on top.
I hope you enjoy the cake. If you have some nice clotted cream available, that would give it another boost. So ... go for it!
Otherwise, you may have the chance to get to Dorset and get a piece of Dorset Apple Cake in a nice tearoom (of course it will be without marzipan).

Near this place I know a nice tearoom. Whatsoever, there are many other nice things to see in Dorset along the Jurassic Coast and beyond. I want to come to an end of this post and leave you with some impressions of Dorset ...