Making of: Künst. A book.

I have to admit: I know too many people who are born in February :) So, here is another birthday cake. This one is for Thomas. Remember? The photo guy. Yes, you can find his blog in my links. Right. It's his birthday and he loves books and he entiteled the last year 'Künst' ('art', trying to pronounce it fake-french-like? Correct me, if I'm wrong...). That is why the cake looks what it looks like.

Photo by Thomas Michalski

I thought a lot about how to make the edge of the cake-book like pages. Thus, I had my first try on Baumkuchen.

For the Baumkuchen you need

250 g butter
250 g sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
grated zest of a lemon
a pinch of salt
6 eggs
3 tbsp. limoncello
150 g flour
100 g starch

	Pre-heat the oven to 250°C (top heat only). Divide the eggs. Mix butter, sugar, lemon zest and vanilla sugar until light and fluffy. First, add the egg yolks, then limoncello, flour and starch. Mix well after each item.
	At last, beat the egg whites with the salt until stiff peaks occur.
	Fold the whites carefully under the dough.
	Line and grease a small rectangular baking tray. Pour ca. 2 tbsp. of the dough into the form and spread it evenly. I recommend a silicone baking brush, here. Put your baking tray in the oven for about 2 minutes. It may be a bit more, or a bit less, depending on your oven. Just take it out, when you see that it is done. Pour another two tbsp. of dough onto it. Spread it evenly. Same procedure as the time before. Go on, until there is no more dough left.
	Usually, you cover the cake in chocolate, or you cut it into pieces and then cover it in chocolate.
	I covered it in lemon butter cream (125 g butter, 125 g confectioner's sugar and grated zest of one lemon) and brown fondant and left three edges open, to make it look like a book. I used 250 g of brown fondant. This amound was enough to make the book cover and all the 'metal' stuff (brown fondant and a tiny amount of edible gold lustre).
	The handwriting was done with a food colour pen. Photo by Thomas Michalski

Actually, quite easy, but I hope it will have the desired effect :)

Photo by Thomas Michalski

Making of: Chocolate Tuxedo Cream Cheesecake

Valentine's Day. Another reason for me to bake a cake :)
This time the recipe is only for a 18cm baking tin, so if you want to use it for a 26cm tin, double the recipe.

For the chocolate fudge cake you need

90 g flour
2 tbsp. cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking powder
80 g sugar
1 egg
75 ml sunflower oil
75 ml milk
1 tbsp. golden syrup


Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and line a 18cm baking tin.
Mix the flour, cocoa, baking powder and sugar in a bowl. Then add the egg, oil, milk and syrup and beat until smooth. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and bake for ca. 35 minutes.

Actually, half the mixture would be enough for what I wanted to make, but it is quite hard to half an egg ;) So, I baked the whole cake, cut it into two layers and used the upper layer for another batch of cake pops. They are basically the same that I had made before (Chocolate cake pops), so no recipe and pictures here...


For the chocolate cheese cream you need

1 egg
1 sachet vanilla sugar
265 g chocolate cream cheese (Philadelphia; one family pack)
2 tbsp. curd
1 sachet custard powder chocolate flavour

Mix the egg and sugar until light and fluffy. Then, add cheese, curd and powder and beat until smooth. Pre-heat the oven to 175°C (top heat only) and bake the cake for about 45 minutes.


For the mascarpone cream you need

125 g mascarpone
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp. sugar

Mix everything until well combined and then spread it on top of your cake.


For the ganache you need

100 g dark chocolate
100 g single cream

Cook the cream and pour it over the chopped chocolate. Stir with a spoon until all the chocolate is melted. Then, cover the whole cake with it.

Making of: Lemon Strawberry Cream Cheesecake

And another birthday cake... :D

This time I was told to bake a kitschy cake, but not pink-girly-kitschy. Nevertheless, it should say 'Happy Birthday' on top. Oh, and no nuts or apples because the person the cake is for is allergic to those. I was not sure whether chocolate would be a a good idea because it often contains small amounts of hazelnut. Well, I decided to go for another cheesecake :)

And here we go:

For the sponge you need

2 eggs
50 g sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
100 g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
grated zest of half a lemon

Separate the eggs. Beat the whites until stiff and slowly mix in the sugar and vanilla sugar. Then add the yolks one by one. Mix the flour with the baking powder and add it to your egg-and-sugar-mixture.
Pour it into a 26cm round baking pan. Preheat the oven to 175°C and put the cake in for about 15 minutes.

Soak the sponge with some teaspoons full of limoncello. Puree 100 g strawberries and pour roughly a third of it onto the sponge.


For the cheesecream you need

3 eggs
100 g sugar
750 g curd
1 sachet custard powder cream flavour
grated zest of half a lemon


Beat eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Add curd, lemon zest and custard powder and mix until well combined.

Pour half the mixture over the sponge.

Dip 6 lady's fingers into the remaining strawberry puree an arrange them on the cake.

Pour the remaining cheese cream onto the cake.

Preheat the oven to 175°C and put the cake in for 40 minutes.

For the lemon mascarpone cream you need

250 g mascarpone
1 egg yolk
50 g sugar (or more)
grated zest and juice of one lemon
Mix the yolk with the sugar and lemon zest and juice until well combined. Then add the mascarpone. Mix well, then top your cake with the cream.

Mix the remaining strawberry puree with a bit of powdered gelatine (handle according to the recipe on the sachet) and write 'Happy Birthday' on the cake, using a piping bag.

Making of: Tiramisu Cheesecake

And here is another experiment on Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes. Since we do have about 10 packages of lady's finger's and two kilos of mascarpone left from another event, I decided to have a go at the Tiramisu Cheesecake.

This recipe will differ a bit from the one for my first trial (cf. White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake) because this one does not have a crust, but a layer of sponge cake instead.

For the sponge you need

2 eggs
50 g sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
100 g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cocoa

Separate the eggs. Beat the whites until stiff and slowly mix in the sugar and vanilla sugar. Then add the yolks one by one. Mix the flour with the baking powder and the cocoa and add it to your egg-and-sugar-mixture.
Pour it into a 26cm round baking pan. Preheat the oven to 175°C and put the cake in for about 15 minutes.

For the second layer you need

ca. 15 lady's fingers
a cup of strong coffee
2 tbl. spoons of amaretto

When the cake is cooled down, cover it with lady's fingers and pour a mixture of strong coffee and amaretto onto them, carefully. The lady's fingers should be soaked, but do not soak the cake too much!

For the cheesecream you need

3 eggs
100 g sugar
750 g curd
1 sachet custard powder cream flavour
3 tbl. spoons of coffee

Beat eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Add curd, coffee and custard powder and mix until well combined.

Pour the mixture over the sponge and lady's fingers.

Preheat the oven to 175°C and put the cake in for 40-50 minutes.

Now it is time for the mascarpone cream. You need

500 g mascarpone
100 g sugar
3 egg yolks

Mix everything until well combined. Put the mixture into the fridge until the cheesecake is completely cooled. Furthermore, the mascarpone cream will become firm in the fridge and thus will be easier to handle in the next step.

When the cake is completely cooled, take the mascarpone cream out of the fridge and put it onto the cake with a spatula. Keep the surface even. For only topping the cake it is way too much mascarpone, so I covered the cake completely. If you want a topping only, half the recipe is enough.

Cocoa powder
400 g single cream
2 sachets of 'whip it'

Now cover the mascarpone cream with sifted cocoa powder, beat the single cream with the 'whip it'-powder and a bit of cocoa powder and pipe tuffs on the edge of the cake. 400 g single cream were also a bit over the top, but I was afraid that 200 g would not be enough. I think 300 g are a good idea for the next experiment :)

Cake Pops: Chocolate Creamcheese

Today was cake pops time again.

For the Coconut-Chocolate Cake Pops (see post below), I bought two loaf cakes of which I used one for the cake pops. The other cake was nearly half eaten by my boyfriend. So I ended up with 250 g loaf cake which was open already and thus had to be used.

250 g cake (crumbs)
100 g chocolate cream cheese (Philadelphia)
ca. 150 g milk chocolate
ca. 30 g sugar sprinkles

Mix the crumbs with the cream cheese until you get a mixture that you can form into shapes.
Shape the mixture into ca. 15 balls and leave them in the fridge for several hours.

Then, put them on lolly sticks and dip them into the melted chocolate until completely covered. Shake it slightly, so that excess chocolate can drip off. Then, dip the top of each ball into a small bowl filled with the sprinkles.

Leave to dry.
Ready.
Yummie!

Cake Pops: Coconut and Chocolate

This time I did not have any cake leftovers, so I bought two loaf cakes. I wanted to buy a simple vanilla cake, but they did not have any, so I chose vanilla chocolate chip.

For ca. 24 coconut cake pops you need

1 loaf cake (400g)
120 g coconut milk
3 tbl. spoons coconut flakes
3 tbl. spoons sugar
300 g chocolate
coconut flakes to dip the pops into

Crumble the cake into the bowl of your stand mixer. Add coconut milk, sugar and coconut flakes and mix it until you get a smooth mixture.

Form this mixture into little balls and put them into the fridge over night.

The next day, poke a lolly stick into each ball and dip it into the melted chocolate. Shake it a little, so that the excess chocolate drips back into the cup and then dip the cake pop into a cup filled with coconut flakes.

Yummie :)