Poppy Seed Tart

This is a very classical German tart, but was never made in my family because my dad, the baker in our family, doesn't like poppy seeds. So I thought I'd give it a try.

Ingredients:

9 inch (26 cm) springform

Some grease

Parchment paper

Crust:

200 g wheat flour

1 leveled teaspoon baking powder

100 g sugar

1 package vanilla sugar or some vanilla aroma

1 pinch of salt

1 egg (optional)

1 tablespoon milk

100 g butter or margarine (1 stick)

Filling:

750 ml (3 cups) milk

125 g butter

150 g semolina flour

150 g poppy seeds

150 g sugar

1 package vanilla sugar or some vanilla aroma

125 g Quark or Greek yoghurt (Fage or Chobani brand)

1 egg (optional)

50 g almond flour

50 g raisins

2 tablespoons rum

Decoration:

Some confectioner's sugar

1. For the crust: Mix flour and baking powder in a bowl. Add remaining ingredients for crust and mix with an electric hand mixer (knead hooks) until a dough has formed. Shape into a ball with hands, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 min.

2. In the meantime prepare the filling: Bring milk and butter in a stovetop pot to a boil. Mix semolina flour and poppy seeds in a bowl. Remove pot with milk from stovetop and stir in semolina-poppy seed mixture. Let cool for 10 min.

3. Grease bottom of springform. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).

4. Roll one half of the dough onto springform bottom. Take the remaining half of dough, form a long rod, and line the edge of the springform. Flatten rod and form an edge of about 3 cm (1.5 inches).

5. Mix sugar, vanilla sugar or aroma, yoghurt, egg, almond flour, raisins and rum with poppy seed mixture. Add mixture to springform and bake for about 1 h. (Put springform on parchment paper because sometimes fat can leak out from the springform).

6. Let cake cool on a rack, remove the springform edge, and sprinkle some confectioner's sugar on top.

Comments:

1. With some people suffering from egg allergies I stopped using eggs in these types of pie crusts. Also, without the egg no chilling of the dough is necessary.

2. Regular or ground poppy seeds can be used in this recipe.

3. To add a little twist, a pear can be added to the filling: Peel and core pear, use a cheese grater to grate pear, then add to poppy seed mixture after boiling.

4. I only used half of the butter the recipe requests for the filling, and I consider leaving it out entirely next time.

Rhubarb Merengue

This cake is one of my all time favorites! I couldn't wait for the first rhubarb to be available, and dreaded the end of the season, which always came too soon. Rhubarb plants require a long recovery period, so the last day of harvest is June 24, the same day the season for white asparagus ends in Germany (also known as Saint John The Baptist day). Depending on the length of the previous winter the rhubarb season can be as short as four weeks, so this cake was rare and a special treat. I particularly loved the little golden sugar pearls that form on top of the merengue. They give this cake an unique appearance.

Ingredients:

baking sheet

some grease

100 g butter or margarine

3 eggs, separated

100 g sugar

125 g confectioner's sugar

1 package vanilla sugar or some vanilla aroma

250 g flour

3 leveled teaspoons baking powder

1/8 Ltr. milk

1 kg (2 pounds) rhubarb

1. Preheat oven. Beat butter or margarine with an electric hand mixer until creamy. Alternating with the 3 egg yolks add 100 g of sugar.

2. In a bowl mix flour and baking powder. Add flour mixture to batter alternating with milk.

3. Grease baking sheet well, add batter and spread evenly onto baking sheet.

4. Peel rhubarb, cut it into smaller pieces (about 1 cm or 1/4 inch) and layer on top of batter.

5. Bake cake on middle rack at 180 degrees Celsius (350F) for about 35 min.

6. In the meantime beat egg whites with an electric hand mixer until they start to stiffen. Add conectioner's sugar and vanilla sugar or vanilla aroma and beat well.

7. Remove cake from oven, spread egg white merengue evenly on top and bake briefly until the surface of the merengue turns light golden in color.

Fantasquares (Fantaschnitten)

This again is a very easy and quick cake that doesn't take more than 45 min total time to prepare. It's a refreshing and light cake. It contains soda (Fanta in Europe, but I prefer Orangina, which comes close to German Fanta in color, taste and sweetness, in the US). Because of the carbon dioxide in the soda the batter is very fluffy. A layer of yoghurt, whipped cream and canned peaches is layered on top making this a perfect summer cake.

Ingredients:

1 greased baking sheet

4 eggs

1 package vanilla sugar or some vanilla aroma

125 g sugar

125 ml (1/2 cup) vegetable oil such as canola or sunflower

150 ml (2/3 cup) Fanta or Orangina soda

3 leveled teaspoons baking powder

250 g flour

For the topping:

2 cans sliced peaches

600 ml (1 pint) heavy whipping cream

500 g Greek Yoghurt (Fage or Chobani brand)

2x25 g sugar or 6 packages vanilla sugar

Some vanilla aroma

ground cinnamon

1. With an electric hand mixer beat eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar or aroma until creamy. Add in oil and soda. Mix flour and baking powder in a bowl. Add a tablespoon at a time to batter and mix well. Pour batter onto greased baking sheet, level and bake in oven (not preheated) at 180 degrees Celsius (350 F) for about 20 to 25 min (until surface is golden brown or toothpick comes out clean). Let cake cool on baking sheet.

2. Drain peaches, and dice into smaller pieces.

3. Whip cream with 25 g sugar (3 packages vanilla sugar) and some vanilla aroma until stiff.

4. Mix Greek yoghurt with 25 g of sugar and some vanilla aroma or 3 packages vanilla sugar). Add in peach dices. Now fold whipped cream under the yoghurt-peach mixture and layer topping on cold cake. Sprinkle some ground cinnamon before serving.

Donauwellen (Danube Waves)

This is another traditional German sheet cake. It's most often prepared at home, and not so frequently found it bakeries.

The cake contains five layers altogether. On the bottom is a white cake layer, which is topped off with a cocoa-containing layer. The batters used for those two layers are very similar to the batter used in marble bread. Sour cherries (I love using them for baking) are layered on top, and all three layers are baked together. Because the cherries sink into the batters during the baking process, the two layers of batter are disturbed forming the characteristic waves in the cake's interior.
Once the cake has cooled off a buttercream is added, and the cake is topped off with a thin layer of chocolate, in which waves are drawn with a fork.
Because of the waves in the cake's interior and on top, this cake is widely known as "Danube waves". However, this is not its only name; some people know this cake as Snow-White-Cake (Schneewittchenkuchen) referring to the famous quote from the fairy tale: "white as snow, as red as blood, and with hair as black as ebony".

Ingredients:

one baking sheet (deep)
some grease
Aluminum foil

For the cake batter:
250 g butter or margarine (2 sticks)
200 g sugar (180 g)
1 package vanilla sugar or some vanilla aroma
1 pinch of salt
5 eggs
375 g all-purpose flour (350 g)
3 leveled teaspoons baking powder
20 g cocoa powder
1 tablespoon milk

2 jars of sour cherries (Trader Joe's sells them in glass jars, they are called "dark Morello cherries)

For the buttercream:
1 package Vanilla pudding powder (e.g. Dr. Oetker or cook-and-serve JELL-O brand)
100 g sugar
500 ml milk (2 cups)
250 g soft butter (2 sticks)

For the topping:
200 g semi-sweet chocolate
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (e.g. sunflower seed or coconut)

1. Grease baking sheet. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).
2. Drain cherries well using a strainer.
3. For the batter beat butter or margarine with an electric hand mixer until creamy. Add sugar, vanilla sugar or aroma, and salt. Beat in eggs, one at a time for about 1/2 min per egg.
3. In a bowl mix flour and baking powder, add to batter in two portions and mix at medium speed until batter is smooth. Take 2/3 of batter and evenly spread on baking sheet. Sift cocoa powder and add with milk to remaining 1/3 of cake batter. Spread dark batter evenly on top of white batter.
4. Take well-drained cherries and spread on dark batter. Push cherries a little into the cake batter with a spoon.
5. Bake cake in lower third if oven for about 40 min (until toothpick comes out clean). Let cake cool on baking sheet.
6. Prepare pudding as directed (add more or less sugar depending on personal taste and pudding ingredients). Let pudding cool, stirring it once in a while (don't refrigerate!).
7. For the buttercream make sure butter and pudding have the same temperature or the buttercream will curdle! Beat soft butter with an electric hand mixer until creamy. To remove any pudding clumps, press pudding through a mesh. Blend pudding with butter adding a tablespoon of pudding at a time. Spread buttercream on top of cake and chill for at least 1h in the refrigerator.
8. Melt chocolate and oil in microwave on low heat. Alternatively, one can bring heat water in a small saucepan, then melt the chocolate and oil in a heat-resistant bowl over the warm water. Stir frequently.
9. Spread chocolate on top of buttercream. Using a fork or a knife, gently draw wavy patterns in the chocolate.
10. Let chocolate cool and serve cake.

Comments:
1. If no deep baking sheet is available, one can build a higher edge around the entire baking sheet with aluminum foil. This will prevent the cake from rising too much and spilling in the oven.
2. To prevent the pudding from forming a milk skin put clear plastic wrap directly on top of the pudding. Frequent stirring is not necessary in this case.
3. If the buttercream curdles during preparation try the following:
Heat water in a large bowl. Put bowl with buttercream into warm water and stir until it becomes smooth again. If that fails melt some coconut oil in the microwave. Make sure the coconut oil is not too hot, otherwise the rescue attempt will fail. Using an electric hand mixer slowly add the coconut oil to the buttercream until it is smooth again. If this attempt fails there is one more possibility that can be tried: Confectioner's sugar is sifted and mixed in equal parts with potato starch. 1 tablespoon of this mixture is added to the buttercream and blended with electric mixer. If necessary a second tablespoon can be added without greatly altering the texture and taste if the buttercream.
4. I prepared this cake with buttercream, but after tasting it I find it quite heavy. I don't remember it being that heavy, and after searching the internet for a bit I found German recipes that use "Paradiescreme" by Dr. Oetker instead of a buttercream. I am wondering if I ever had this cake with real buttercream. "Paradiescreme" is a cold stirred custard similar to regular Vanilla JELL-O. If it turns out that spreading the chocolate topping is difficult because the custard cream doesn't solidify well, one can sift a thin layer of cocoa powder on top and draw the waves into the cocoa powder.