Category Archives: Special Occasions

December 13th, 2010

Lussekatter

LussekatterI fall in love with Lussekatter – Lucia cats – already last year. This little buns are from Sweden and are a traditional treat on 13. December. Last year I had no time to bake them but this year I made the little saffron buns punctual for Saint Lucia’s Day.

Looking for an recipe in the Internet I realize that there are to groups of recipes: one using kesella – a kind of curd, the other one being a normal yeast dough. Adding curd to the buns helps to make them softer. But I decided to use no curd but to add some water roux to the dough which adds more moisture to the dough and makes it soft, too. Then I reduce the amount of yeast found in most recipes, and let the dough rest overnight in the fridge. The cold dough is much easier to handle at the next morning.

The lussekatter are a beautiful treat for the breakfast table during christmas time, with a beautiful yellow crumb and the gentle taste of saffron.

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November 7th, 2010

Christstollen – delicious and moist

Christstollen

Christmas seems to be still far far away. You could buy Spektulatius and Lebkuchen in the supermarket since months but I ignore this fact since month, too. For me it is still autumn!

But then I realize that in three (!) weeks we have the first Sunday in Advent and that I have to bake christstollen right now if I plan to serve a christstollen infused with all the flavours that only three or four weeks of storing can create.

And so I bake again the same recipe like last year – the one I invented for a super moist stollen. The Taste of it is great: some vanilla, cinnamon, cardamom and mace fused with raisins and candid orangepeel and citron peel. Make sure to buy the best ingredients you get, the quality of the ingredients affect the quality of the stollen!

For the recipe, please look at my last years post here.

October 24th, 2010

Wedding Cake

Hochzeitstorte (1)

When my cousin told in august that she would marry in October I offered happily that I could bake the wedding cake. Maybe I was jumping up and down and asked “Can I bake the cake, can I bake the cake”, too.

Groom and Bride like the Idea and so I started to search the web for Inspiration. Finding a cake topper that fits in the budget was not easy. I liked a stylized Couple in white but this was to modern for my cousin and her fiancé. They wished for something more romantic. So I search the web for inspiration and fell in love with this cake. But for this cake I had to do the Cake Topper by myself. So I bough Polymer clay and start to model a wedding couple. This was easier then I thought.

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April 3rd, 2010

Osterhäschen

OsterhäschenIn March I had to work a lot. There were many things I had to do in Lab and there was a Talk I had to prepare for a meeting. Coming back from this meeting last week I feel a little bit dizzy. This dizziness was the first sign of a bad viral infection I catch. So I stay in bed most of the week, sleeping or watching TV. I did not cook or bake and I was even to tiered to bring the blog up to date.

But now I am feeling better again. I sound still like Darth Vader (Anyone want to guess what I was watching the last days?) but when I do things slowly I feel fit enough to bake little Easter bunnies for Sunday. Some are for our breakfast but most of them are small Easter presents for family and friends.

To bake buns shaped as Easter bunnies is a family tradition and for me as essential for Easter as Easter eggs! Continue reading

November 9th, 2009

Weckmänner

WeckmannThis post is a special one for me, because it is post Number 100  and because I write my first post 1 year ago. How time flies!

But back to my topic: Weckmann. Sarah already asked me for a recipe here.

Weckmann comes from the words Weckchen (that are sweet rolls in rhineland) and  Mann (man), so it means sweet roll man.

On 11. November, the day of Saint Martin, children goes through the streets in a latern procession, singing songs about the saint. Afterwards every child gets a weckmann.

Because weckmänner have a very fluffy and soft crumb I decided to use water roux. It is a mixture that contains of 1 part flour and 5 parts water and which is heated to 65°C. It cause the starch to gelatinization, so it binds more water, which make the bread softer and fluffier and enhanced the shelf life.

It works very fine with my weckmänner Continue reading