Cake Pops: Oreo Cream Cheese

Another thing I made for N.'s birthday (remember the lemon yoghurt cake?) were Oreo Cake Pops. Those are really simple to make, but were eaten up about 10 minutes after I had entered the room. 

All you need is:

250 g oreos
about 100 g cream cheese (I used 'Brunch', by the way.)
melted chocolate
sugar sprincles
 
Crumble up the oreos and add small amounts of cream cheese. Blend until the mass clumps together. It still looks crumbly after having been mixed for some minutes? Add a bit more cheese. I actually ended up with too much cheese, so that the mass was too sticky, so I had to add some crumbled lady's fingers to it.
Now form little balls out of the mass and leave them in the fridge for half an hour. When they are set, melt the chocolate and dip one end of the poker into it before poking it into the cake pop.

Then dip the whole pop into the melted chocolate and after having let excess chocolate drip off, dip the top of it into a small bowl of sugar sprinkles.

Lemon Yoghurt Cake

Another birthday, another cake. Even though I heard about the birthday party less than a day before ("Let's see who is spontaneous."), of course, I managed to make a cake :)

This cake is inspired by the Red Currant Yoghurt Cake I made for the 6-course menu. Well, it is actually the same cake, only without the red currant and lemon jelly powder instead of raspberry one. 

All you need is:

300 g lady's fingers (replaced half of it with oat flakes cookies)
100 g butter
2 sachets (for 500 ml each) lemon jelly (jello) powder
200 g sugar
500 g yoghurt
3 tbsp. lemon juice
200 g red currant
400 g single cream

Crumble the lady's fingers and cookies into pieces as small as possible. Melt the butter and mix it with the crumbs. Grease a 24cm baking tin (spring form) and fill it with the crumbs. Push the crumbs onto the bottom of the tin evenly, so that they form a cake base. Put the tin into the fridge to allow the cake base to set.
Meanwhile, mix the jelly powder with sugar and 250 ml water. Yes, 250 ml water altogether. <miss piggy mood> Trust me! </miss piggy mood>. Allow the powder to soak in some water and while it does so, pour the joghurt into a bowl and stir in the lemon juice.
Now, heat the jelly and water until all the powder and sugar is melted. Do not cook! Then, leave it to cool, stirring occasionally. When the (still liquid) jelly has cooled down a bit, pour it over the yoghurt and stir it in with a spoon until you get an even yellow mass. Whisk half the single cream until stiff. Then, fold into the yoghurt cream until the cream gets an even soft yellow colour.
Pour the cream into onto the cake base and leave it in the fridge for at least four hours.

When the cream is set, whisk the remaining single cream until stiff and cover the whole cake (take off  the frame of the springform pan, first) with whipped cream. Decorate it, if you like. I sprinkled on some glittery green sugar.

Cake Pops: Lady's Fingers and Honey Cream Cheese

Ok, what do you do when you have got loads of lady's fingers left and found this really yummie honey cream cheese? Right: Cake pops.

Well, these ones are super easy. You simply crumble up your lady's fingers and stir in the cream cheese by the spoonful until the whole mass clumps together (real mass, no crumble). That's it? Yes, that's it. Now form (or rather roll) the 'dough' into little balls or whatever form you like and leave them in the fridge for several hours to set. Then, melt some chocolate and dip the top of a lolly stick (or something similar) into the chocolate and poke it into one ball. This will prevent the dough from slipping from the stick when dipped into the chocolate. When the chocolate on the sticks is set, dip the cake pops one by one into the melted chocolate. Shake excess chocolate off gently and then place the pops into a glass, so that they can dry completely.

Everything you need:

lady's fingers
honey cream cheese (about half the amount of the lady's fingers)
melted chocolate
lolly sticks

Poppy Seed Cake

And yet another birthday cake... It was my father's birthday and he loves poppy seed cakes. Well, not the 'German' poppy seed cakes where there is loads of cake and just a few poppy seeds strewn in, but the Polish one, where there is just enough cake to hold the massive amounts of poppy seed :)

For the shell you need:

150 g flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
75 g sugar
100 g butter
1 egg

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and knead them until you get an even mass that you can roll out. If the dough is too sticky, add a bit flour and knead again. If it is too crumbly, add small amounts of water and knead again.
When you have managed to roll the dough out into a circular shape of about 32 cm, put it into a 26cm greased and floured baking tin and carefully form a ca. 3cm high edge.
While preparing the filling, let the shell rest in the fridge.

For the filling you need:

750 g poppy seed baking mix
80 g melted butter
ground almonds
1 egg
raisins

Melt the butter in a medium sized pot. When it is melted, take the pot from the heat and add the poppy seeds and almonds. Then stir in the egg and fold under the raisins.
Spread the mixture into the shell and then bake the cake for about 40 minutes on 180°C.

Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes

Something simple in between, made for a meeting with the 'conceptualisation' team for our next play :)

Well, there were loads of apples in our fruit basket and about three pounds of butter... Flash of genius: Apple cupcakes with cinnamon butter cream!

All you need is:

300 g flour
1 sachet baking powder
1 pinch salt
125 g butter (at room temperature)
150 g sugar
2 eggs
150 ml milk
1 apple


250 g butter (at room temperature)
250 g icing sugar
loads of ground cinnamon (to taste)


Actually the muffin recipe makes 12 rather large muffins. But since I wanted to top them with butter cream, I made them slightly smaller and finally got 19. When it comes to filling the muffin caps, there will be a picture, so that you can see how much dough went in, actually.


Step 1: Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

Step 2: In another bowl mix butter, sugar and eggs. Then, slowly add the milk.

Step 3: Peel the apple and remove the seeds. Then, cut it into dice it as finely as desired. My dices had an edge length of about half a centimetre.

Step 4: Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture and stir until well combined. Fold under the apple dices.

Step 5: Now, either grease your muffin pan, or fill each cup with a paper muffin cap. <linguist> Cup... cap... cup... cap... minimal pairs, yay :) </linguist> Fill in about one and a half tablespoons of dough, cf. picture. Bake for about 20 minutes on 180°C. Check whether they are done by inserting a toothpick. Does it come out clean? Done!

Step 6: Let the muffins cool down.

Step 7: Sift all the icing sugar and mix it with the butter until light and fluffy. Then, add as much cinnamon as you like. I added about one teaspoon full, but next time it will definitely be MOOOOORE :)

Step 8: The muffins have cooled down? Ok, so take a small spatula or a knife and spread some butter cream onto each muffin. You can pipe swirls on them as well, but I think you will need some more butter cream for that. If you do it the lazy way - as I did - this amount of butter cream will be sufficient.

Ok, now have a guess what I forgot... Right... taking photos of the finished cupcakes... Well, actually, they were nothing fancy because I did not pipe the cream onto them, but spread it on with a knife ^^ Nevertheless, they were yummie... At least I was told so :)

Another bento

This bento was made for a dvd-watching-evening with a friend.

This is what happens when I want to make a bento for three persons... Yes, three...

On the top there are - from left to right - egg-chili onigiri, cheese umbrellas, eggs.
In the middle: In the first two silicon muffin caps there are eggs and herbed curd cheese. Another one contains strawberries and the last one grated zucchini, carrot and rice noodles. There are three apple rabbits as well. In the centre there are six spring rolls filled with what is as well in the last muffin cap :)
To the very right there are cucumber slices filled with wasabi and rice, topped with smoked salmon (Remember the amuse gueule from the 6-course menu?). On the bottom right there are sausages shaped as octopuses and flowers. In the middle there are puff pastry rolls filled with rice, horseradish cream cheese, red bell pepper and spinach leaves. Finally, there are cucumber flowers filled with herbed curd cheese, red bell pepper and carrot flowers.

In these little pots between the onigiri there is soy sauce and the other four pots contain sambal badjak (red), herbed curd cheese (yellow), garlic cream (blue) and wasabi (green).

This time the dessert was not this elaborate, but I HAD to try Token's (http://bento-lunch-blog.blogspot.com/2012/03/matcha-pralinen-gruntee-cakeballs.html) matcha cakeballs :) I did not decorate them, but nevertheless LOVE them.

Making of: Marble Strawberry Cake

Another in-time event. Another cake :) Last weekend we met again. This time our location was the Aachen Ponttor. Actually, this was a preparation for a bigger event, coming in two weeks. Since the 'host's' coat of arms includes oak leaves I included them in the cake decoration.

Well, what you need is:

3 eggs
a pinch of salt
150 g sugar
2 sachets vanilla sugar
125 g flour
25 g corn starch
1 tsp. baking powder
75 g ground almonds
12 leaves white gelatin
750 g strawberries
2 tbsp. lemon juice
400 g single cream
ca. 40 g green fondant

Divide the eggs and beat the whites to a stiff peak, adding the salt, 100 g sugar and one sachet vanilla sugar while beating. Mix in the yolks slowly, but not too long. In another bowl mix flour, corn starch, baking powder and almonds. Fill the mixture onto the egg mixture and fold under, carefully.
Line the bottom of a 26cm springform tin (no greasing!!), fill in the sponge and smooth it with a rubber spatula. Bake the sponge for about 40 minutes on 175°C.

While the sponge cools down, pour some some water over the gelatin and let it soak for some minutes. Meanwhile, add the remaining sugar and vanilla sugar and the lemon juice to the strawberries and puree most of them. Leave about ten for decoration purpose. Melt down the gelatin by heating it slowly. Add it to the strawberry puree and put the mass into the fridge.
Beat half the single cream until stiff. When the strawberry puree begins to gel, fold about 2/3 of it under the whipped cream. Do not mix too much, so that you get a marble pattern.

Cut the sponge in half, horizontally. Put one half into a springform, to form the base of your cake. Fill in the marble cream and top with the other half of your sponge. Pour the remaining third of the strawberry puree onto it and put the cake into the fridge until set (at least four hours!). I left it in the fridge over night.

Then, whip the remaining single cream until stiff. Slide a thin knife carefully between the cake and the edge of the form and remove the springform. Spread half the whipped cream onto the edge of the cake. Fill the remaining cream into a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe a small wavy border onto the edge of the top. Have a look at the pictures, this will make it easier :)

Now, take the strawberries you have left for decoration purpose and cut them into fine slices. Press those slices gently against the cake border.

Finally, roll out some green fondant, dusted with a tiny amount of icing sugar, and cut out seven oak leaves with a cookie cutter. The fondant will remain very soft, or maybe become even soggy, depending on how long you leave it on the puree, so you better put them onto the cake as close to serving as possible.

Well, in the end I was told by several people that this was the first cake made by me of which you could eat more than one slice without dying of feeling stuffed :)

Cherry Crumble-Pie

Two weeks ago we (some weird people, wearing kind of medieval clothes) met for a 'hunt'. We actually chased wooden planks that were cut out and painted as different animals and positioned along the way.

Well, another nice day for baking a cake :)

For this cake you need:

200 g flour
1 tsp. baking flour
75 g sugar
1 egg
75 g butter

720 ml canned cherries
2 tbsp. sugar
1 sachet custard powder vanilla flavour

100 g flour
100 g ground hazelnut
100 g butter
100 g sugar

Step 1: Put all the ingredients from the first package (flour, baking flour, sugar, egg and butter) into a bowl an knead until well combined. Flour your working surface slightly and roll out the dough into a 29-cm circle. Grease and flour a 26-cm round baking tin and put the dough-circle in, lining the sides about 1,5 cm high. Put the tin into the fridge while preparing the filling.

Step 2: Put a sieve onto a bowl and fill the canned cherries into the sieve. Add ca. 100 ml water to the 'cherry juice' . Mix 5 tbsp. water with 2 tbsp. sugar and the custard powder. Bring the juice to the boil, then stir in the custard mix, stirring constantly until the mass begins to thicken. Fold under the cherries and let cool.

Step 3: Mix the remaining ingredients (flour, hazelnut, butter and sugar) in a bowl, kneading them with your hands to form crumble.

Step 4: Get the baking tin from the fridge. Fill in the cherry-mix, then top with the crumble.

Step 5: Bake your cake for about 45-50 minutes, 175°C.

Step 6: Eat the cake :) You might want to add whipped cream to make it even more yummie :)

6-course menu

Last week, two friends of ours came for a visit an my boyfriend and I were just in the mood for serving more than only one dish. Well, in the end it turned out to be six dishes.

1. A little 'something', inspired by a sushi book I got for Christmas
2. Caprese
3. Salad
4. Fish, rice and sweet peas
5. Self-made strawberry ice-cream
6. Red currant yoghurt cake

1. For the 'amuse gueule' (the first course) you need

ca. 40 g sushi rice (it sounds too little, but it really is not)
a bit vinegar
half a cucumber
wasabi
soy sauce
up to four slices smoked salmon
4 salad leaves
sunflower seeds

Wash and cook the sushi rice. When it is done, add a bit vinegar to taste. While the rice cools down, cut the cucumber into rings that are roughly 3 cm thick. Peel (skin?) the cucumber and spoon the seeds out carefully with a small spoon. Then, mix one teaspoon full of wasabi with the same amount of soy sauce and spread some of the mixture on the inside of the cucumber slices. Then put one slice onto a little plate and stuff the cucumber with the rice. Do that with all the slices. When you are done with stuffing them, cut half circles into the salad leaves and arrange them around the cucumber. Then, take the slices of smoked salmon and cut each slice lengthwise into two parts. Roll two 'salmon straps', so that they form a rose. Position one rose on each rice filled cucumber slice. When you are finished, sprinkle some sunflower seeds over your dish. 

Oh, by the way, my boyfriend also decorated it with a slice of cucumber and tomato :)


2. Ok, the second dish was simply mozzarella with tomatoes, both sliced, and a bit of balsamic vinegar. Nevertheless, I forgot taking a photo.

3. The third dish was this kind of salad:

Salad leaves, cucumber, tomato, eggs, onions, red bell pepper, rocket, cinnamon-salt-croutons, mustard sauce,...


4. The fourth dish looked like this:

Redfish with lots of dill, sweet peas and djuvec rice. Made by my boyfriend again. Yummie :)

5. The fifth dish was made by me again (2-4 were made by my boyfriend). It was self-made strawberry ice-cream.

You need:

500 g strawberries (pureed)
4 egg yolks

120 g sugar
200 g single cream

Mix the egg yolks with the sugar until well combined. Then, add the pureed strawberries. Mix again. Beat the cream until stiff, then fold under the strawberries. Pour into a bowl or into silicon muffin caps and put them into the fridge until it is frozen. I do recommend a bowl because it is rather much ice-cream in the end.



6. A cake again. This time it was a no-baking cake, or a fridge cake, or whatever you want to call a cake that has never seen an oven from the inside :)

You need:

300 g lady's fingers
100 g butter
2 sachets (for 500 ml each) jelly (jello) powder
200 g sugar
500 g yoghurt
3 tbsp. lemon juice
200 g red currant
400 g single cream

Crumble the lady's fingers into pieces as small as possible. Melt the butter and mix it with the crumbs. Grease a 24cm baking tin (spring form) and fill it with the crumbs. Push the crumbs onto the bottom of the tin evenly, so that they form a cake base. Put the tin into the fridge to allow the cake base to set.
Meanwhile, mix the jelly powder with sugar and 250 ml water. Yes, 250 ml water altogether. <miss piggy mood> Trust me! </miss piggy mood>. Allow the powder to soak in some water and while it does so, pour the joghurt into a bowl and stir in the lemon juice.
Now, heat the jelly and water until all the powder and sugar is melted. Do not cook! Then, leave it to cool, stirring occasionally. In the meantime you can wash and pluck the fruits. When the (still liquid) jelly has cooled down a bit, pour it over the yoghurt and stir it in with a spoon until you get an even pink mass. Whisk half the single cream until stiff. Then, fold into the yoghurt cream until the cream gets an even soft pink colour. Fold in 150 g red currant as well.
Pour the cream into onto the cake base and leave it in the fridge for at least four hours.

When the cream is set, whisk the remaining single cream until stiff and cover the whole cake (take off  the frame of the springform pan, first) with whipped cream. Decorate the cake with the remaining red currant. Yummie :)

I'm alive...

Ok, long time no post... So to speak. Since I still do search for the 'get photos out of the camera and put them into you computer'-device for my boyfriend's camera, I - unfortunately - cannot post the cake I soooo want to post. Well. Some-when, I will find it.
In the meantime, I will post photos that were taken by a mobile phone camera. Do not worry, I did not stop baking :)

Within the last two weeks there were three cakes, but I only made photos of two of them...

The first one was what I call a 'comforting cake' (Tröstekuchen). One of my library co-workers was ditched by her boyfriend, so I made her favourite cake for her. It was a sponge topped with vanilla custard, topped with fruits. I chose peach, mandarin orange, kiwi and carambola.

One cake I made last week was part of a 6-course menu, which I will post within the next few days. Red currant :) I love it!

Last but not least, a cherry crumble pie for another LARP-event, which will also get a separate post.

So, please be a little more patient and there will be more, more, more... :)