Cotton Cake

This recipe was recommended by a high school friend. It is apparently a kid's cake, but it's also loved by many adults. The recipe is quite similar to the buttermilk almond cake I made in 2013. Here shredded coconut is used as a topping, and whipping cream is poured over the hot cake immediately after baking.

The German recipe uses cups as measurements, but cups are a set measurement in the US (1 cup equals roughly 250 ml), so I tweaked the recipe to accommodate that.

Ingredients:

Deep Pyrex dish (9x13 inches) or deep baking dish

Some grease

1 cup sugar

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 package vanilla sugar or some vanilla aroma

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

Topping:

1 cup shredded coconut

3/4 cup whipping cream

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F). Grease Pyrex dish or deep baking dish.

2. Mix sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and vanilla sugar or vanilla aroma in a bowl.

3. Add eggs and buttermilk, and whisk everything together until a smooth batter has formed. Pour batter into baking dish.

4. Sprinkle shredded coconut on top of cake. Bake cake at 180 degrees Celsius (350 F) for about 20 minutes or until a tootick comes out clean.

5. Remove cake from oven, and pour whipping cream on top. This will make this cake very moist.

Comments:

1. The original recipe doesn't use any baking soda. I find that it helps the cake batter when using acidic ingredients such as buttermilk, so I added a little.

2. Shredded coconut in the US is often already sweetened. If the shredded coconut you use is unsweetened you might like to mix it with 1/2 cup sugar before sprinkling it on top.

Cranberry tart

Traditionally this tart is prepared with lingonberries, a relative of the more common cranberries in the United States. The tart is very similar to the "Linzer Torte" that I prepared last year. Linzer tart is prepared with raspberry jam, and the pastry dough contains spices. This tart recipe uses cocoa, and the filling contains lingonberry or cranberry jam, and sliced almonds.

Ingredients:

12 inch springform or 9x13 inch Pyrex dish

Some grease

Pastry dough:

300 g flour

A pinch of salt

100 g sugar

150 g butter or margarine

1 egg (optional) or some milk

1 tablespoon cocoa powder, unsweetened

Filling:

1 jar (~350 g -400 g) lingonberry jam or cranberry sauce

70 g sliced almonds

Topping:

Some milk

1. Mix flour, butter, sugar, cocoa powder, and egg or milk in a bowl. Using the knead hooks of an electric hand mixer mix all ingredients until a pastry dough has formed. Wrap pastry dough in plastic wrap and chill for about 30 minutes or overnight.

2. Grease bottom of springform or Pyrex dish. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350F). Take 2/3 of the dough and use to line bottom of springform or Pyrex dish.

3. Mix lingonberry jam or cranberry sauce with sliced almonds. Spread evenly on top of pastry dough bottom.

4. Take the remaining 1/3 of the pastry dough and roll out flat. Cut into long stripes, about 1/2-3/4 inch wide (I used a pizza cutter for that). Put stripes on top of jam, forming a criss-cross pattern. Lastly, brush some milk over the pastry pattern; this will make the surface shiny, and connect the pastry dough layers.

5. Bake tart for about 35 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (350F). Remove tart from oven. This tart can be eaten hot or cold, with or without some whipped cream.

Little Lemon Cakes

A little warning ahead - this recipe was a disaster when I made it, and I had to rescue it at multiple steps (see important comments). With these alterations, though it turned out pretty well.

Ingredients:

Baking sheet

Parchment paper

50 g butter

100 g marzipan paste

2 eggs

100 g powdered sugar

1 package vanilla sugar or some vanilla aroma

1 lemon (zest)

100 g flour

2 tablespoons milk

Filling:

Marmelade (I used lemon curd instead)

Decoration:

100 g semisweet chocolate

A little coconut oil

Preparation:

1. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).

2. Separate egg. Beat egg whites until very stiff. Cut marzipan paste into small pieces.

3. Using an electric hand mixer mix butter, marzipan paste and egg yolks until soft.

4. Add powdered sugar (sifted if necessary), vanilla sugar or some vanilla aroma, and lemon zest, and keep mixing until a smooth batter has formed (3 minutes).

5. Sift flour, and add flour alternating with milk. Lastly, fold egg whites into batter.

6. Fill batter into a piping bag, and squeeze small cookie circles onto baking sheet.

7. Bake cookies at 180 degrees Celsius (350 F) for 10 minutes. Remove baking sheet from oven, let cool down briefly, then remove cookies sliding a knife under. Let cookies cool down fully.

8. Filling: Spread marmelade or lemon curd on one half of the cookies, put a second cookie on top.

9. Decoration: Melt chocolate and coconut oil in a bowl over hot water. Dip cookies halfway into chocolate, then put on parchment paper. When the chocolate is solid, put the cookies into a box.

Comments:

1. The disaster started after I filled the batter into the piping bag. The batter was too solid to be squeezed out. So I scraped the batter out again, added more milk, and tried again. This time I was able to squeeze little cookies onto the baking sheet, but they started running during baking forming all sort of amorphous shapes. No two cookies looked the same.

Here's my solution: I first added lemon curd to one cookie half, added the second cookie on top, then used a small round cookie cutter and cut out the center. Now all cookies look the same, almost like coins.

Some other idea: Instead of cutting the double cookie, spread the batter onto parchment paper, and bake as a sheet. Remove parchment paper, then cut cookies out with a cookie cutter.

2. The cookies are made from a dough that is a cross between a sponge cake and a pound cake. They are very soft, and tend to stick to each other. When you let them cool, do not stack them on top of each other, they will stick together.

3. I also prepared the batter with Trader Joe's gluten-free flour. The texture is almost identical, the cookies are not crumbling, which can be a problem when you use gluten-free flour. A little success!

Buttermilk-Mango Bread

I had some leftover buttermilk and was looking for a recipe that needed buttermilk. This recipe originally uses fresh apricots. Apricot season will be later in the year, but I had a fresh mango, and thought I would modify the recipe and try I your with fresh mango instead.

Ingredients:

Loaf pan (5 inch x 9 inch) or Kastenform 25 cm

Some grease

Some flour

All-In batter:

1 fresh mango

3 eggs

150 ml buttermilk

Lemon zest (one lemon)

Some melissa leafs (melissa officinalis or balm)

75 g sugar

300 g flour

1 package vanilla pudding powder or 1/2 package JELL-O vanilla cook&serve

1.5 tablespoons potato starch

1 pinch of salt

3 leveled teaspoons baking powder

1 leveled teaspoon baking soda

Topping:

2 teaspoons lemon juice

50 g powdered sugar

Preparation:

1. Grease, then flour loaf pan; this will help the bread to come out more easily after baking.

2. Dice mango into small pieces. Grate lemon and collect lemon zest. Squeeze lemon and collect the juice. Wash and cut balm leaves into small pieces. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).

3. Mix buttermilk, eggs, lemon zest, and sugar in a bowl, then mix in the pieces of balm leaves.

4. In a separate bowl mix flour, vanilla pudding powder or JELL-O vanilla cook&serve, starch, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

5. Pour buttermilk-egg mixture into the bowl with flour, and whisk until no dry flour remains.

6. Pour batter into the greased and floured loaf pan, then bake at 180 degrees Celsius (350 F) for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes cut bread lengthwise 1/2 inch deep. This will help the crust to break up nicely during baking.

7. Bake sweet bread for another 40 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (350 F). Test with toothpick if bread is done: if the toothpick comes out clean the bread is thoroughly baked. Remove bread from oven, let cool for a few minutes, then remove from loaf pan.

Comments:

1. As I mentioned the original recipe uses 250 g fresh apricots, but I am sure this bread will turn out nicely with any fresh fruit.

2. You can certainly use canned apricots or other canned fruit. Just drain the fruit very well before cutting it up.

3. Frozen berries or other frozen fruit will work, too. Thaw and drain the fruit well, then coat the fruit with flour. This will prevent the fruit from sinking to the bottom.