Chocolate Fudge Cake

For my dad's birthday, he asked for an extremely dense, chocolatey cake. So be warned, this recipe is definitely not suited for you if you are on a diet. ;) Since I used dark chocolate with 80% cocoa, the cake turned out rather bitter than sweet (which went great with vanilla ice cream, I might add), however chocolate with 60% or less cocoa should work just fine if you are more into sweeter cakes. 

Ingredients:

Dough:

• 1 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup sunflower oil
• 250g dark chocolate
• 1/2 cup hot coffee
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1 1/4 cup sugar 
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsps baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 pack vanilla sugar

Ganache:

•  250g dark chocolate
• 1 cup cream
• 1 pack vanilla sugar

 Preheat the oven to 160 °C (fan oven) or 180 °C (upper and lower heat).

Slowly melt the dark chocolate in a sauce pan together with the oil, coffee and sugar. Mix the remaining dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon and vanilla sugar) in a bowl. Add chocolate mixture, eggs and milk and mix.

Line the baking form with oil or butter to avoid sticking. Pour the cake batter into the form and let it bake for approximately 50 minutes (you can use a toothpick to check whether the cake is done).

Do not worry about cracks in the surface of your cake, as these will get covered by the ganache, anyways. Add the vanilla sugar, cream and dark chocolate to a saucepan and slowly melt the chocolate for the ganache. Let the ganache cool down in the refrigerate for about 45 minutes so that the texture becomes less liquid. If you want an extremely thick layer of ganache on your cake, just keep it in the refrigerator for a longer period of time.

As you can see, I was a little impatient, since the ganache was still pretty fluid. ;)

 I hope your cakes turn out well and please come back for more recipes! :)

Spitzbuben - "Redcurrant christmas cookies"

Another German christmas-classic to finish off this year's holiday season. While these are absolutely delicious, I am usually a bit hesitant to bake these, since you basically only end up with half as many cookies as you bake. This is due to the fact that the cookies consist of two cookie layers separated by redcurrant jam. The dough is fairly easy to prepare and aside from the redcurrant jam, the ingredients are pretty basic and should therefore be easy to find in your local supermarket.

Ingredients:

Dough:

•  300g flour
• 100g sugar
• 200g butter
• 1 egg

Other:

• Redcurrant jam
• Confectioner's sugar 

Preheat the oven to 180 °C (fan oven) or 200-210 °C (upper and lower heat). Chop the butter into very small portions and add all ingredients to a mixing bowl in the order mentioned above. Knead the dough until the mixture is even. If you use your hands to knead, cool them before you get started (for example through cold water) to keep the dough as cold as possible, as it will get sticky otherwise. Refrigerate the dough for 1-2 hours. Spread flour on a surface and use a rolling pin to get a dough thickness of approximately 0.2 cm.

 Feel free to use whichever kind of cookie cutter you have at home, however Spitzbuben are traditionally flower-shaped.

Use a small circular cookie cutter to remove the center of every second cookie. 

Bake the cookies for approximately 10 minutes. Cover all cookies without holes with redcurrant jam and put one of the cookies with a hole on top. Squeeze lightly and remove all excess jam pressed out on the sides. 

Lightly dust all cookies with sifted confectioner's sugar.

I hope everyone enjoyed christmas day with their loved ones and please check back for more recipes to keep you busy during the upcoming winter months!

Vanillekipferl - "Vanilla moons"

These fluffy cookies are a delicious blend of almond and vanilla. Due to the fact that this recipe calls for egg yolk, while the cinnamon star recipe calls for egg whites, I usually bake both recipes in one day in order not to waste any ingredients.

Ingredients:

Dough:

• 250g flour
• 80g confectioner's sugar
• 1 vanilla bean
• 200g butter
• 2 egg yolks
• 100g ground almonds (peeled)
• pinch of salt

To cover the cookies:

• 2 packs of vanilla sugar (alternatively, a bit of vanilla flavor and additional sugar should work)
•  50g sugar/ confectioner's sugar (I usually alternate between those, as confectioner's sugar looks more like christmas, but sugar tastes better)

Preheat the oven to 160 °C (fan oven) or 200 °C (upper and lower heat). Scrape the vanilla bean and seperate egg yolks from egg whites. You might want to sieve the confectioner's sugar, as there should not be any lumps. Mix all ingredients for the dough in the order mentioned above and let the dough sit for 1-2 hours in the fridge. Try to keep the dough as cool as possible at all times.

Form "sausages"out of the dough and bend them into little crescents. Be careful to keep them evenly sized and do not make the ends too pointy, as they will get burnt if you do. Keep enough space between the cookies, as they will get bigger in the oven.

Mix the sugar and vanilla sugar in a bowl. As soon as the cookies get out of the oven (after about 10 minutes, they should not turn brown), "bathe" them in the sugar-mix individually. Be careful, as they are still quite fragile when they are warm. However, they need to be warm for the sugar to stick to them.

Let the cookies cool off before you package them. I hope you enjoy baking this recipe and please come back if you are interested in more christmas recipes. Happy holidays!

Zimtsterne - "Cinnamon stars"

As a major christmas-fanatic and lover of baked goods, I decided that the best way to start this blog would be a German classic. Cinnamon stars perfectly combine the flavors of almonds and cinnamon and even though they are fairly easy to bake, the contrast between the smooth white topping and rough almond dough made them a German christmas staple.

Ingredients:

• 500g ground almonds (unpeeled) + additional alonds to cover the working area
• 250g confectioner's sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3 egg whites
• 3 drops bitter almond flavor (can be substituted with other almond flavor or left out if not available in your country)
• 1 pack of vanilla sugar (can be substituted with vanilla flavor)

Preheat the oven to 100 °C (fan oven) or 125 °C (upper and lower heat). Beat egg whites until stiff. Carefully add small portions of confectioner's sugar to the egg whites while you keep mixing. Remove 6 tablespoons of the mixture and keep it seperately, as you will need it for the topping later on. Add the almonds, cinnamon, bitter almond flavor and vanilla sugar to the remaining egg white-mixture. Knead the dough and dust the surface of your working area with ground almonds or flour to keep the dough from sticking to the surface. Spread the dough using a rolling pin until it is approximately 1 cm thick.

 

Use whichever cookie cutters you like, however stars are traditionally used. Next, place the cut-out dough on baking paper and cover the dough with the egg white-sugar mix you set aside earlier. I usually do this with a brush, however spoons should work as well.

Place the cookies in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Check regularly to make sure that the cookies are not baked for too long, as the topping should stay white. Let the cookies cool off for a while before packaging them, as they are very fragile while they are still warm.

Other christmas-recipes will follow soon, so please revisit this site if you are interested in more recipes! Happy holidays!