39*52 Banana Chocolate Layer Cake

It was the hubby's birthday this week! Yay!

His usual birthday baking wish is Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest Cherry Cake) but this time he said that he had a yummy Banana Layer Cake once and that that would be an option as well.

So for the sake of variety, I started searching for a Banana Layer Cake recipe and decided to make this one:

Banana Chocolate Layer Cake 

Adapted from Chefkoch.de

100 g dark chocolate

600 g heavy cream

5 eggs

150 g sugar

5 tablespoon water, hot

100 g flour

50 g cocoa powder

5 bananas

200 g heavy sour cream

500 g vanilla yoghurt

3 sheets gelatine

• Melt chocolate in a bain-marie. Let cool a bit and add 200 g of the heavy cream. Stir well but carefully and not too much. Let cool in fridge.
• Separate the eggs. Beat egg whites with 50 g sugar until stiff. Beat egg yolks with remaining 100 g sugar and the hot water until foamy (about 5 minutes). Sieve flour and cocoa powder into egg yolk mix, combine carefully. Add beaten egg whites and fold in carefully. Pour into prepared springform pan and bake for 15-20 minutes at 200°C (390°F). Take out and let cool completely before cutting once horizontally.
• Combine heavy sour cream and yoghurt. Whip 200 g of the heavy cream and combine with yoghurt mix. Soak gelatine in cold water. Squeeze out excess water and warm over low heat until liquid. Add cream-yoghurt mix carefully and stir well.
• Whip the chocolate cream. Whip the last 200 g of heavy cream and combine with chocolate cream. Put in fridge again.
• Put one half of the cake into a cake ring. Peel bananas, cut in half lengthwise and arrange on cake bottom. Pour cream-yoghurt mix on top of bananas. Put second cake on top and press slightly. Distribute 2/3 of chocolate cream on top. Let cool.
• When taking away the cake ring, use remaining 1/3 of chocolate cream to cover the sides.

My modifications:

None. 

The taste:

Definitely better after 2 days than on the same day as preparing it. It just wasn't sweet enough and therefore a bit bland first. But it definitely aged well.

We might still go back to Black Forest Cherry Cake next year...

What is your typical birthday cake?

38*52 Brezel-Muffins

Oktoberfest in Munich has started!

I actually don't find this exciting news at all, but why not bake something that fits into the Oktoberfest theme?

Plus - and this was actually the main reason for the recipe below - I forgot about 2 pretzels I had bought so I wanted to make something using these stale pretzels.

Brezel-Muffins

Original recipe with inspiration help by kochbar.de and ichkoche.at

2 Brezeln/pretzels, stale

1 onion

250 ml milk

2 eggs

8 olives, green

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons flour

75 g cheese, grated

• Cut the pretzels into slices and/or pieces. Mix milk and eggs and pour over pretzel pieces, let soak for about 15 minutes.
• Cut onion into small pieces and fry in a pan until translucent. Add to the pretzel-milk-egg mix. 
• Cut olives into small slices and add as well. Dust baking powder and flour over pretzel-mix and combine. Add grated cheese and mix.
• Pour into prepared muffin pan and bake at 180°C (350°F) for 20-30 minutes. 

My modifications:

None, since it is my recipe. I just used the two recipes mentioned above for inspiration.

The taste:

Good! Like a bread/pretzel dumpling in muffin shape. And a bit like an omelette. It's great with pumpkin soup!

What's your favorite recipe for using stale bread or other food that has to be used up?

37*52 Sesame Cranberry Cookies

What to do with lots of sesame?

Bake cookies?

Bake cookies.

Sesame Cranberry Cookies

Adapted from Chefkoch.de 

300 g flour 

100 g sugar 

100 g sesame seeds 

125 g butter 

1 sachet vanilla sugar (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract) 

2-4 tablespoons yoghurt 

50 g dried cranberries, roughly chopped 

• Combine all ingredients until you get a smooth, slightly sticky dough. (If you feel like it: it works very well just using your hands.)
• Cool dough in fridge for about 30 minutes.
• Roll small balls using your hands, flatten, and put on prepared baking sheet.
• Bake at 180°C (350°F) for about 15 minutes.

My modifications:

I reduced the sugar by 50 g. I added the cranberries and had to double the amount of yoghurt to 4 tablespoons or the dough would have been too dry. I also added a splash of milk but only because it was necessary. Leave out if your dough is moist enough.

I also accidentally baked them at 180°C and not 200°C which left them a bit soft (which I love!).

The taste:

I really like it! Not too sweet and very sesameny (or sesamy?). Definitely don't omit the cranberries! 

Where do you search for recipes when you have lots of one ingredient that you want to use? 

36*52 Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

This is one of those recipes.

I don't even remember how I stumbled upon it. Or when.

But I had it open on my ipad for a long time.
And now seemed to be the right time to finally make it.

Yay!

Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

Adapted from The Baker Chick

Streusel:

(2/3 cups) sugar

pinch of salt

(3/4 cups) flour

1/2 tablespoon cinnamon

4 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:

(1 cup) brown sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder

Cake:

(3/4 cup) butter, softened

1 teaspoon salt

(1 1/2 cups) sugar

(1/3 cup) brown sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 large eggs

(3/4 cup) plain yoghurt

(1 1/4 cups) milk

(3 3/4 cups) flour

• Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
• For the Streusel, whisk together dry ingredients, then add melted butter and stir until combined. Set aside.
• For the filling, mix together all ingredients and set aside.
• For the cake, beat together butter, salt, sugars, baking powder, and vanilla until smooth.
• Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each.
• In a separate bowl, mix the yoghurt and milk. Add to the butter-egg mix alternating with the flour.
• Pour half the batter into prepared 9x13 pan. Sprinkle filling evenly on top. Pour the other half of the batter on top. Gently swirl the filling into the batter, as if making marble cake.
• Sprinkle Streusel over the batter.
• Bake for about 55-60 minutes until it's golden brown around the edges. Remove from oven and let cool.

My modifications:

I prepared the filling according to the recipe but only used about half of it. It just seemed like a loooooot of sugar. And it was totally enough. Next time I might just use half the sugar but the full amount of cinnamon.

The taste:

I really love it. The Streusel were a bit too crunchy (I would probably add a bit more butter next time) but otherwise it was perfect. It is a basic, comfort-food-kind-of cake but still great with the filling and Streusel topping. Make it for breakfast instead of cinnamon rolls - perfect! Will definitely make this one again.

What's your favorite cinnamon recipe?

35*52 Plum Crumble Cake

Can you believe it is September already? I can't. And I don't want to. 

Even though I love fall. Doesn't make sense, does it?

One great thing about fall are plums. I know, I know, it is still summer.

But we can already enjoy a bit of plum-crumble-cake action, can't we?

Especially when it's fast and easy as the one below.

 Plum Crumble Cake

Adapted from Lecker.de

225 g butter

750 g plums

350 g flour

150 g ground almonds

150 g sugar

1 sachet vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1 egg

• Preheat oven to 200°C (390°F). 
• Melt the butter and let cool. Cut plums in half or quarters, take out pits.
• Combine flour, almonds, sugar, vanilla (sugar), cinnamon, baking powder, and salt.
• Add egg and melted butter and mix with a fork, then using your hands.
• Take 2/3 of the crumble dough and press to the bottom of a greased springform pan.
• Distribute plums evenly and crumble remaining 1/3 of the crumble dough over plums.
• Bake for 40-50 minutes. Let cool completely before serving.

My modifications:

Okay. I wanted to bake this spontaneously. Not having to go to the store before. And then I realized that I didn't have enough of most of the ingredients at home. But it still worked:

- 190 g butter plus 35 g oil,

- flour and ground almonds instead of 500 g flour,

- 150 g sugar instead of 175 g,

- half a mashed banana instead of the egg.

The taste:

Very yummy! A little too wintery or even christmassy with the cinnamon - I would definitely omit this next time. But the addition of the ground almonds is so good! Please do it if you can. As you can imagine, the bottom is not fluffy at all. But especially on the second day after baking, when the plum juices soaked through the bottom - heavenly!

Have you ever changed a recipe because you didn't have enough of each of the ingredients at home?