The German Friendship Cake

Meet Herman: the German Friendship Cake I adopted last week. His arrival interrupted the birthing of other baking babies, but normal production will resume shortly. He came to me, not by Stork, but by a colleague, who got him from someone else, who got him from someone else. He's been from pillar to post has poor old Herman. Once I got him home, I had to give him a good feed: he was on a restricted diet of flour, milk and sugar to provide him with all the nutrients he needed to keep him alive and well, and his former bubbly self. He needed regular attention with the spoon and a further feeding before he miraculously multiplied and spawned siblings. Alas, my oven isn't large enough for quads, so I had to give his brothers to some equally caring, and maternal bakers at work.

This made Herman very demanding and, now at an appropriate age, I was able to feed him properly. His appetite was satisfied with lots of Bramley apple chunks, sultanas, lots more sugar and some vanilla and cinnamon. Then he was placed, snug as a bug in a rug, into a nice, cosy baking tray and warmed up for 45 minutes in the oven. He smelt lovely.

Herman is a very special sort of cake: he comes from the magical mixture that is sourdough which apparently keeps for years and years. You just keep topping it up and the wonders of science do their stuff. I have no idea where or how long ago Herman was born, and who knows where his 'seed' will travel? What I do know is that he has turned into a very handsome cake and is really rather tasty. He did a wonderful job softening the apples as he baked, and is beautifully moist.

Here's Herman at his best; straight from the oven and soon to be served with an almighty squirt of cream. If you manage to forget about his dubious origins, and what he looked like when he was bubbling away in his fledgling state, he's nothing short of divine. Easy to slice, and perfect for freezing. 12 wedges await a future day when sugary comfort is required.

Mother's verdict: very proud of my little Herman; he wasn't as high maintenance as I feared, but a rather fascinating little fellow.

Husband rating: 8 - really tasty and enjoyed the apples. A little bit soggy.

10. Nusskuchen

This was one of the cakes I'd been putting off for a while, not because it looked difficult to make, but because there were a lot of processes, and I knew I'd need a full day to complete each element. As it was, I made it over two days: the cake on Sunday and the filling and topping on Monday. 'Nusskuchen' is German for 'Nut cake' and contains ground hazelnuts. Mission #1: toast the nuts in the oven; rub them in a tea towel to get the skins off; grind them in a blender. This was fiddly, but yielded something rather lovely; I've discovered something nice to sprinkle on ice cream in the future.

Nuts aside, the cake mixture was fairly standard, although I did have to separate the eggs and whisk the whites for adding later. I've now defeated my butter-softening demons: the solution was to cut the cold butter into smaller cubes and put them in warm water (I think my version of 'lukewarm' is more 'you could more or less say there was a bit of warmth in it'). The cake baked for about 25 mins, appeared to rise nicely, but then fell a bit flat when it cooled. I have no idea whether it was meant to be like this (about the depth of  a layer of a Victoria Sandwich) because there are no pictures in the book. It smelt nice anyway - the ground hazlenuts were distinct. Oh, there was coffee in it too, which managed not to be too overpowering.

The filling consisted of sliced apples, apricot jam and the rind/juice of half a lemon. I don't think I cooked them for long enough as some of the apples were still a little bit 'crunchy'. I'm usually an over-cooker, so I'm trying to avoid that and occasionally under-baking. Anyway, it tasted nice. The topping was simply melted plain chocolate. Mary recommends serving it in 6 portions, with cream, so Joe and I sampled it that way initially, but my colleagues had it without the cream. I was worried it'd be a bit dry, but I think it was reasonably moist - especially the next day when the apples soaked into the sponge a bit.

Baker's verdict: an interesting cake to make, with a variety of techniques to learn and master (some success here); the kitchen was a mess - utensils and equipment everywhere. Pretty easy to make; tasted good, but personally I felt it was a bit confused, with too many flavours at odds with each other.

Husband rating: 7.5 - liked the apple filling particularly; nice hazelnut flavour running through; liked the crunch of the chocolate on top. Could've been a bit lighter, but not sure what it's meant to be like.

German teacher colleague HJH: Ausgezeichnet! Sehr lecker! Make it again, please. Danke.

9. Basic All-In-One Sponge Traybake

This bake is another 'let's avoid the difficult one' project; I'm now fast running out of the easy ones for this section! I'm quite frustrated to be strapped for time at the moment, because I'm really looking forward to baking something different again. But I keep thinking that it's at least better to bake something than nothing at all. So here it is, a very basic sponge - baked in a rectangular tray rather than a round one!

I'm discovering that the supermarkets, although quite well-stocked with baking equipment, probably aren't going to meet my needs as I progress through the book. This recipe, for example, required a 12x9" tray; the closest I could get was an 11x9" one. I don't think it really matters, unless OCD kicks in, but Mary seems to be quite set on a particular size of tin, and maybe it was the inch shortage that made the cake domed in the middle.

Anyway, it consisted of a very basic sponge mixture, with no extra flavourings. I've got butter issues: I seldom plan ahead enough to take it out of the fridge well in advance to soften, so I use the method Mary suggests: cubing it up and putting it in lukewarm water for 10 minutes or so, until it's squeezable. The trouble is, it doesn't cream well when mixed with the other ingredients, and I keep ending up with mixtures with little buttery lumps in it. I know they'll melt, but I'm sure it has some sort of effect on the end result. For this cake, I suspect the odd darker circles on the top of it might have been as a result of my butter lumps. All that said, it cooked for 35 minutes (my system of baking for the minimum time recommended seems to be working) and made the house smell lovely (as sponges do). I got myself in a two and eight about whether to turn it out for slicing or do it in the tin (didn't want to scratch it, so I went against MB's suggestion), and also ruined the effect of the dusting of icing sugar with some careless fingerprints. But it sliced well, and made 24 lovely little chunks of cake (some lovelier than others). Very practical for taking to work and sharing, which I did.

Baker's verdict: easy to make; tasty; nice bouncy texture.

Husband rating: 7.5 - really nice and tasty; great flavour and texture; not at all dry, just a bit plain.



8. Chocolate Crispies

I'm being naughty. I've got a challenging cake to make and I keep finding myself making other things from my first 'section' instead! I'm keen to bake every week, but I've been too busy to devote the time to anything serious, so I sought solace in the kids' section and made these instead. They're probably one of the easiest things to knock out (apart from the faff with the golden syrup), but I managed to bodge them up a bit by using the wrong type of chocolate. The recipe book was at home; I was in the supermarket; they were intended for my A Level students; I bought milk chocolate instead of dark. Didn't think it would matter too much until I melted it with the syrup and butter and it started to go all grainy and sort of claggy. It was actually quite difficult to work with once I tipped the cornflakes in. I couldn't really coat the cornflakes very well; the chocolate seemed to start re-setting quite quickly. I think I'm gradually learning a few more things about ingredients and chemical reactions! I definitely need to do something about my bun cases as well: they don't fit the tin and this makes putting mixture into them a pain in the backside.

Baker's verdict: really easy to make, but the wrong type of chocolate caused problems. Tasted pretty good though.

Husband rating: 6.5/10 - very tasty with a good texture but not the most attractive crispies.

7. Viennese Fingers

 

For another break from the cake, I decided to skip a few chapters and bake some more biscuits instead. I've always loved Viennese biscuits, and these totally lived up to expectations. They were easy to make; again, there were relatively few ingredients, and quite straightforward processes involved. I'm wondering if using the electric whisk is really the right way to go with these biscuits, because although everything gets nicely beaten together, it's a bit of a pain when the mixture gets all clogged up around the beaters. Anyway, I learnt something new while making these; how to use a piping bag properly. Mum was on hand to assist in my novice attempt to get the quite dense mixture down to the nozzle; it was actually quite hard work piping the biscuits out! They looked a bit like funny little sandworms on the baking sheet when I'd piped them, but I managed to get the required 20 biscuits out, with a few hand-moulded blobs too, which I wasn't expecting. It seems a little goes a long way where these biscuits are concerned. I really need to trust Mary more...

The biscuits had 11 minutes in the oven, and slid off the tray with ease. I left them cooling for a while before melting the chocolate, and was worried they'd crumble, being a bit delicate round the edges. It was immensely satisfying dunking them in the melted chocolate, albeit a bit messy. They were then put in the fridge to finish setting, because we were too impatient to wait any longer for the chocolate to harden. They did stick to the rack a bit unfortunately.

Baker's verdict: a bit fiddly, but easy enough to make. Lovely light, buttery biscuits - very moreish.

Husband rating: 9/10 - no complaints; he's saving the 10 for something unbeatable.

Dad and Uncle rating: 10/10 -  they were very impressed.

6. Death By Chocolate Cake

If you were going to meet your end in a chocolatey fashion, I'm sure this cake would help. The cake itself simply has cocoa powder in it; it's the icing that might cause artery cloggage! Instead of butter, sunflower oil is used and there's some golden syrup in there too. With the addition of milk, a mixture of a very wet consistency is formed, and two fairly sticky sponges emerge.After cooling, the cakes need to be sliced in half; managed with relative ease.

Picture 1 shows the icing: the product of 450g of plain chocolate and 200g of butter. It's a huge amount, designed to sandwich each half sponge together and cover the top and sides. It tasted heavenly (we had to lick the pallet knife when I'd finished icing, of course), but you'd not want much of it in one sitting!My first attempt at icing a whole cake was a bit cack-handed to say the least, but I sort of found a technique and don't think I did too badly for a first attempt. I don't think I overheated the chocolate - it looked pretty shiny to me. The picture on the right shows the semi-finished product, and if I make this cake again I think I'd leave it at that. Just serve it with cream and some raspberries or boozy cherries maybe.

This is the cake post-decoration. I had to coarsely grate plain and white chocolate (which Joe ended up doing for me thanks to my jitters about grating my fingers). I'm now quite eager to learn a bit more about chocolate-craft when decorating cakes; I wasn't happy with the end result, which made it look a bit of a mess really.

When sliced, the cake looked lovely. The icing had set firm, which created a nice contrast in textures between a very light sponge and quite solid chocolate. I'm pleased to have produced a cake which looked a bit professional; a step beyond the basic sponge sandwich variety. It wasn't too sickly (certainly not sweet) but you'd need to eat to your means!
Baker's verdict: a challenge; some anxiety about whether the sponges were cooked enough. Tasted lovely. I'd make this again.
Husband rating: 9 - very tasty; very nice chocolate icing.

5. Fork Biscuits

I've decided to stray slightly from my order of baking by making these biscuits; I wanted to bake something but thought the two rather decadent chocolate cakes I've got to make warranted an occasion more special than a same-old, same-old Thursday! I'm so excited by this project that I threw a wobbly this week because I needed an extra baking sheet for these, and then it was too late in the evening to be eating biscuits, so I didn't bake anything. I think I had withdrawal symptoms, feeling bereft without my apron! 

So, these are the first biscuits in the biscuit chapter, simply called 'Fork Biscuits' (note the fork marks), apparently derived from an old Cordon Bleu recipe. They only contain three ingredients: butter, self-raising flour and caster sugar. I keep having crises of confidence about what constitutes 'softened butter' (as daft as that sounds; I did have a cheese straw disaster before Christmas because the butter was too soft), but I braced myself for a disaster and happily it didn't happen. The dough took a while to form; it began as lots of flaky crumbs but I was eventually able to work it into the required 'balls'. They took just over 15 minutes to bake, smelt lovely and buttery and, despite being a bit 'rustic' looking, acquired a nice golden colour.

Baker's verdict: easy to make, with a bit of faith; lovely taste and a texture much like shortbread.

Husband rating: 8.25 - really, really tasty but could've been more perfect in appearance. Tried and tested by colleagues who asked for second helpings.

P.S. Since starting my blog, I've had two comments about it being an inspiration to bake!