Okt 25

Chocolate Deathstar

I don’t know why but I like to surprise colleagues on their last day with baked goods.

One of my favourite colleagues had his last day on Friday and as he didn’t tell anyone yet what kind of job he’s going to do afterwards, we all kept guessing. My last guess was that he’ll be running the Empire so I thought he might need a Deathstar.

I found this How-To Video on youtube and decided to make a Chocolate Fudge Cake and decorate it.

For the Chocolate Cake:

(If you want to sandwich them together like I did, you will need to make the recipe twice Continue reading »

Okt 12

Millionaire Shortbread

I truly love caramel. And I am into British and Irish treats. So this recipe is the perfect combination and to die for!

Shortbread:

  • 115 g butter
  • 175 g flour
  • 55 g brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 175°C/350°F and  line a 23cm/9inch square cake tin with parchment paper. Process butter, flour and sugar to a dough. Press the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the hot oven for 20 until golden.

Meanwhile make the filling:

  • 175 g butter
  • 115 g brown sugar
  • 3 tbsp golden syrup (I use agave syrup)
  • 400 g canned condensed milk

Heat butter, sugar, golden sugar and canned condensed milk gently in a sauce pan. Stirr well while making  the mixture boil and simmer for some minutes until it is very thick. Then pour over the baked shortbread base and let it cool in the fridge.

Topping

  • 200 g dark chocolate, melted

Spread the melted chocolate over the caramel mixture and let cool completely. Cut into small stripes and share!

Okt 3

Quick christmas cookies

I know, it is only october but today is a bank holiday in Germany and we started the day lazy on the couch. Around 3, after the second lazy sunday movie, my boyfriend had a craving for christmas cookies. If supermarkets start to sell christmas stuff in early septermber, why not bake my first own christmas cookies in october?! So I went into the kitchen to see which ingredients I had at hand. After another quick look in my recipe collection I decided to make my grandma’s coconut macaroons.
It is a very simple and quick recipe but soooo delicous!

2 eggs
175-200 g sugar
1 Tablespoon honey
250 g grated coconut

Beat the eggs and the sugar together to a thick and solid cream. This takes around 5-10 minutes. Whisk in the honey and gradually add the grated coconut until it reaches a doughy consistency, but not too soft.
Preheat the oven to 150° C/ 300° F and line two baking trays with parchment paper. Take two teaspoons and spoon the dough onto the parchment paper. My grandma used to put the dough on wafers but I don’t like wafers myself so I do it without them.
Bake them for 15-20 minutes and enjoy already hot from tray 😉

Okt 1

Cute OreOwls

One member of my team at work left us last week and as her farewell-gift was not here in time, I decided to bake her something cute to lessen the pain.

I stumbled over this OreOwls recipe last week and thought this would be a cute idea. So Thursday night me and my Oreo-cutting helper started to prep some owls. I was a little weirded out by the lack of egg in the recipe but this is what gives the cupcakes a yummy muddy texture that goes well with the chocolate ganache.

 

I spread all 12 sad’n’cute looking owls over her table before she came and they were a total hit!
But eating them is definately not for softies. Tearing those cuties apart hurts!

Sep 21

The Cupcake Massacre

I wanted to make some sweet treats for my friends birthday party in September. As she is a huge peanut butter fan, I was looking for an adequate recipe to fulfill her wish. As I scored with my version of the Irish car bomb cupcakes at her last party I searched for a peanut buttery alternative on the same blog (which is one of my favourites anyway). And there they were, Dark chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting, I fell for them at first glance.

I took a day off from work to enjoy a whole day of baking fun. I went shopping for ingredients, got out my measures, arranged everything on my kitchen counter and started my baking day. I started to follow the recipes instructions, but using my simmering pan with thermometer and not letting the temperature of the chocolate mixture rise to more than 50°C (which is a good tip that I learned at a praline course I took because like that the chocolate won’t get burned). I prepared the dough, transferred it into my muffin pan and into the hot oven.

I don’t know what exactly happened to the cupcakes in the oven but instead of rising at least a little in height, they only rose in width.
I cooled them for some time before trying to remove them from the muffin pan but the tops broke and most of the cupcakes came out in crumbles. I could save at least 4 cupcakes from breaking but when I got them out of the pan, the paper cups remained in the pan. It was a complete massacre of chocolatety cupcake crumbles and paper cups…
I first blamed the recipe and tried to figure out what to do instead. I suspect my oven to be the point of failure because afterwards, baking another cake at the same temperature, it took twice the baking time for the cake to finish plus the spare cupcakes with a proved and tested recipe were pretty much the same…

I wanted to make some additional Cake Pops anyway so the crumbles were a good thing to start with. So I made the peanutbutter frosting from the recipe and mixed my cupcake crumbles with half of the frosting to get a moist Cake Pop basis. They were amazing!

Cakepops are a fantastic possibility to cover up baking fails. They are ridicoulously easy to make, any flavour can be added and they can be styled from thrifty to fancy. All you need is some time, especially for cooling and different icings or decorations. But they look very good on a buffet and have a perfekt bite size.

Sep 21

Getting started

I had this idea to start a baking blog for quite a while but was lacking the the energy to really go for it. Some weeks ago I got up earlier as usual to make some fresh muffins for my colleague and while preparing I thought to myself that today is the day. So here goes my new baking blog. I started on another blog platform but now decided to move to my own webspace.
I really love baking, although it is hard work and takes quite some time, I always love to amaze everyone around me with my creations. Plus I really have a sweet tooth and love to eat things that I made with my own hands. It is one of the nicest hobbies and everyone appreciates the results 🙂

I intend to post my favourite recipes, report my experiences with new recipes and share successes and failures. I decided to write in English although not a native speaker so please ignore my mistakes 😉