German-style Apple Cider Cake

German-style Apple Cider CakeThose of you who follow my instagram know already that I paid my annual visit to the Apfelweinfestival (aka Cider Festival) in Frankfurt some weeks ago. I love applewine and thus the festival. It takes place in the center of Frankfurt city and always comes with the most hilarious stage acts that you can imagine and lots of different cider makers from around Frankfurt. We went during the day but that did not keep us from trying out various variations of cider and enjoying the stage highlights. On my way home, I was craving my Mum’s Applewine Cake so much that I had to make some. When I fiddled out the recipe lightning struck me. Funny how a hyphen can shatter your entire world. I always thought it was applewine (as in cider) and not apple-wine (just apples and real wine) cake for all my life. No I know better and transformed it into Apple Cider Cake.

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Sugar cookies – an edible Wedding Favour

WeddingFavourCookiesWow! I can’t believe one year has already passed. This Sunday is our first Wedding anniversary and the date coming closer filled me with mixed emotions. On one hand it makes me really happy because we spent a fantastic day with friends & family and had a wonderful ceremony & party. On the other hand it makes me sad, because my grandpa couldn’t be with us and died a few weeks after our Wedding. But I’ll stick to those happy memories for now, because everything else would make me burst in tears. Continue reading »

Salted Caramel Brownies

Salted Caramel BrowniesI love chocolate AND salted caramel. I love the combination of salty and sweet, as I’ve written about this in my Beer Batter Maple Bacon Cupcake Post before, I won’t go into more detail here. Chocolate and salted caramel is a fancy and also very popular combination yet hard to top. I remembered the delicious cookies with salt and caramel and thought to myself, that the same flavour could fit into one tray of brownies. My first impulse was to just make brownies and top it with salted caramel sauce. But that sounded too lame, so I searched for some directions online and that gave me another idea of how to realise it. These brownies are very chocolatey, not too sweet and the salted caramel completes this treat. Sorry for the basic photo, I had to take the phone to capture this beauty before the office mates ate them all up. Continue reading »

Zebra cake

Recently a friend of mine asked me if I could make some cake and cookies for her sons birthday. As it was a Knight-themed party and included a treasure hunt on the woods, it had to be sugar cookue coins and a castle-cake, easy to transport, suitable for kids and outdoors on a hot day. I started to look for inspirations and found a lot of cool looking stuff, but most of these cakes were neither transportable not suitable for kids. Plus I had to chose something I’d be able to do with a sore leg. After a lot of thinking it came down to the simplest solution: A square cake cut out as a 2D-castle. Zebra cake with sugar icing should do the trick.

Zebra cake castleThis cake is rather simple to make but has a stunning zebra-stripe effect, that makes sassy and unique. It tastes so good, is very moist but solid enough to cut it into shape. I’ve been doing a lot of those zebra cakes in my baking life, it was actually the first cake that I ever made all on my own. It is my mothers swiss-army-knife cake, suitable for every shape or occasion you can imagine, from Easter lambs over giant car-shaped birthday cakes to cake reindeers. I associate darn good memories with this cake though I haven’t been making it very often since I moved out of my Mums house. It’s the star at every Kiddie Party and even amazes grown ups. But shhhhh don’t tell them it is this easy! Continue reading »