Fischbrötchen-Kuchen

I call this preemptive cultural acclimatisation:

as the leaving dos continue, I have moved on, mentally at least, to my new city, which is famous for concert halls under construction – and fish sandwiches.

So being preemptive as usual, I have baked Fischbrötchen-Kuchen, fish sandwich cakes.

They are easy to make: you simply take

 

diminutive breads (= Brötchen)

 

and fish (biscuits)

 and then add ersatz tartar sauce (i.e. white chocolate cream cheese cream) –

and you get

Fischbrötchen!

Eurovision baking: something rotten in the state of Denmark

Ugh.

Dear reader, I have learned a valuable lesson this week: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.

If you want to create artificial mould on your cake that looks as real as possible, you will end up regretting it. Especially when you’re more than a bit paranoid about rotten food.

Ugh.

Let’s talk about the nice part, then: the cake!

It’s my own creation, apple & almond biscuit bread. I based the recipe on what I’ve been told is a typical Danish dessert, some sort of trifle thing. The cake was seriously yum, very moist, and the tartness of the apples set off the sweetness of the almond biscuits in a lovely way.

There was not a single piece of cake left by the end of the party, wich says a lot considering the way it looked!

Unfortunately, though, I cannot give you the recipe. It’s not that I am withholding it on purpose – it’s just that I can’t quite say how much of what I used. I should start making notes when I’m on one of my baking experiments! I am ever so sorry.

Now. For the gross bit.

I mixed some flour and icing sugar for the basis of the mouldy bits and used a little brush to apply it to the cake. Then I added blue and green food colouring (the powdery stuff rather than the liquid colours I usually prefer) and did some more applying of disgusting stuff onto my lovely apple and almond biscuits bread.

I was hoping it would look real but the result still overwhelmed me. And not only in a good way…

But! It was perfect for our Denmark-themed Eurovision party. And some perfomers’ outfits looked more offensive than my mouldy bread.

I hope you all watched the show and cheered for Conchita. What a night!

Next year’s party motto: Wurst Käs Szenario. (Sorry, the awful pun only works in German.)

What’s the wurst that can happen!?

Honey Beer Bread

We hosted another dinner party last night. It was so much fun – not least because it was officially this season’s first Glühwein night!

The sad thing was that I was NOT in charge of dessert, so it looked like there was no baking occasion for me. It’s not like I don’t love cooking, and I like to think that both my Middle Eastern pumpkin soup and the lamb tagine were a real success. But still. Me wants baking.

So I thought … if my friends are going to keep me from baking a cake for Friday night, I am baking bread for Saturday morning! They all stayed the night at our place anyway. (Remember I mentioned Glühwein? ;)

Never having baked bread before I was intrigued by an incredibly simple and yummy sounding recipe I found on my wanderings through various food blogs.

Honey Beer Bread

The bread is wonderful; I really like the taste. I did a trial run on Wednesday, and this second time round I have changed the recipe only a tiny little bit. Now I really want to try out different variations of it though!

Honey Beer Bread

Ingredients
300 g flour
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp honey
355 ml beer
60 g butter, melted

Method
Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt; then stir in honey and beer – you may want to microwave the honey for a few seconds because that makes it easier to stir it in. Spoon half the melted butter into a loaf tin and use some of it to lightly grease the sides of the tin. Then add the batter and finally the second half of the melted butter. Spread it on top of the batter with a brush or the backside of a spoon.
Bake at 180° C for about 55 minutes.