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