TBL September: Plum Frangipane Cake

The goldsmith gave me a hell of a minute when telling me on the phone that something went wrong with making our wedding bands smaller. What a joke. It was a huge hassle to make them smaller and in the end we payed nothing. So I decided to pay with a smile and a cake. As September is traditional plum season I went for something with plums and a twist. When I flipped through my marked recipes I stumbled upon a recipe in Lecker magazine: Plum Frangipane Cake

To be honest, the first thing I did was looking up what frangipane is: a filling made of almonds, butter, eggs and sugar. The recipe I used needed marzipan instead of ground almonds. The Scone rolls I tried earlier this year were filled with something similar, not calling it frangipane. Seriously, Marzipan cream and Plums? Hell yeah! Continue reading »

Okt 13

Friends of Laphroaig Dinner - 7 photos »

Sep 6

TBL: Chocolate Truffle Ruffles

As you might know already I was quite busy in the past month with recovering from a knee surgery and my wedding. The most annoying thing in that past month was that I was rather limited to my home, not able to stand for longer than a couple of minutes, had to walk with crutches and was completely dependent on my friends and family. Especially my best friend and Maid of Honor made an exceptional job on the wedding planning and realization of “the day”. Without her the day wouldn’t have been this perfect! I spent the last night before the Wedding at her house and brought a princess breakfast as a small “Thank you” gift. Continue reading »

Aug 30

TBL: Lemon Meringue Pie

For driving me home I granted one of my colleagues the choice of the July recipe from my To Bake List (TBL). As it was very hot that time he chose the lemon meringue pie. I was very curious to try it and compare it to the Tarte au Citron. You see I am still very proud of that Tarte stuff and I think I can be. That is why I always compare… But this pie was very tasty, too and definitely wins the time-benefit-assessment.

Edit: I have adjusted the recipe slightly because I like to have more filling for a large 28cm tarte. Continue reading »

Aug 15

Strassbourg – Breakout - 7 photos »

Jul 4

Me underneath the Kurumba coconut palm tree

Currently I feel like I ran out of energy, I’m dying to recharge my batteries. But when? Besides the wedding and the house construction time, energy and money are rare. All the invitations are out already, the confirmations come in one after the other, we had a test-dinner and talks with the priest, it seems that everything falls into place now as it is only 1.5 months to go ’til the wedding. The construction work still gives me a headache. Even though we are not doing anything ourselves, it seems that we both have to invest a whole lot of work, my partner even much more than I do. Beginning of last week I woke up and had a message of my “Maid of Honour” in my inbox, saying “go, check this blog you like, he’s writing about how to win a trip to the Maledives”. I was wide awake instantly. The sweet sound of H-O-L-I-D-A-Y, the thought of sea, sand and idling – like a dream come true! So from that day on I had nothing than coconut on my mind, sketching pictures of me underneath a coconut tree on the back of my used post-its. I have the feeling that anything that comes close to a holiday is far out of reach and I definately need a break. Bearing all this in mind I formed a plan for my entry to the competition. Continue reading »

Jun 18

Chocolate Cherry Cake

We travelled around last Saturday to pick some window sills for the house and ended up in a large traffic jam in the middle of nowhere. After finally getting there 2 minutes before closing time my mood was *erhm…*. But we found sills and also possible tiles for the first floor so I was quite okay when we headed back into civilization and to our architect. She lives in Frauenstein, a suburb of Wiesbaden, an area that is known for grapes, wine and cherries. On our way home I had to shop 1 kilo of cherries. I was asked with a raised eyebrow “who the hell should eat all those” and I answered “you on a cake” with a big fat grin. He was courios to so I described him this very easy choc’n’cherry cake and after dinner I started to rattle in the kitchen. Luckily the cake tasting a bit like squishy raw cookie dough topped with cherries was approved… Continue reading »

Jun 10

Frankfurter Kranz Cupcakes

I live in the state of Hesse and the Frankfurt Crown Cake is besides Applewine (some sort of Cider) one of the things that the region is famous for. There are many different recipes for the cake but something they all have in common is the shape and the cover with butter cream, golden brittle and cherries to make it look like a crown. I like the version of the cake that comes with a base of sponge cake, cherry jam and a light butter cream. As I promised to bring a cake to work the other day I was looking for the appropriate tin to make the cake at home. But I couldn’t find it and decided that I could also go for cupcakes. Continue reading »

Mai 29

Apple-get-what-you-want-cake

Sometimes a simple misunderstanding can cause a whole lot of problems. Honestly if people would only take 10 minutes to sit together and talk instead of writing e-mails, life could be so much easier. We had some troubles with a business partner and contractor and they were discussing heavily about some invoices and couldn’t agree on the sum to be payed. Everyone made a suggestion and not a single word was heard any more. My partner didn’t trust the silence and asked one of the party about the outcome of their discussion and the answer was not satisfying. After calling the other party and hearing that this person was very upset about the situation and willing to bring a legal adviser into the game, he almost freaked out. So he took over the role of a counselor and decided to bring the two parties to one table in order to find a solution. In order to calm them down he asked me to make a cake. I decided to make my favorite apple cake with grandma’s recipe, which was very much appreciated by the receiver and -tadaa- they finally agreed after a face-2-face meeting. So let there be love, peace and cake!

Mai 19

World Baking Day

I don’t know if you knew that today is the World Baking Day. I only found out some days ago and decided to go for Level 99, because I love chocolate and strawberries. The recipe sounded tricky but doable so I decided I’d give it a try. It took me all day but finally the result was totally worth it. It looks as yum as it tastes! I wonder if I find a place where I can order this cake for the wedding.

Schabakery

I love baking