Poppy Bee Sting (Bienenstichkuchen mit Mohn)

For S's birthday this year, he requested a bienenstichkuchen (bee sting cake). We talked about it a bit, and he said it was the topping that he really likes, with honey and toasted almonds - the creamy filling not so much. I reflected, and browsed the internet a bit, and then spotted this and realized I'd found our cake - it has bienenstich topping and a mohn filling, thus combining two of S's fave cakes (the other being mohnkuchen). And we get to use honey from my bee club for the topping! I've not made many yeasted cakes before, so wasn't sure how it would turn out - also because I was translating a recipe from German, referring to another in English for tips, and buying ingredients in Danish...

Cake:
150 g whipping cream
50 g butter
400 g flour
1 pack fresh yeast (42 g) (= approx. 2 tbsp dried yeast)
50 g sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla sugar
pinch of salt
2 eggs (size M)

Topping:
150 g butter
100 g sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla sugar
50 g honey
50 g whipping cream
200 g flaked almonds

Filling:
74 g custard powder
40 g sugar
600 ml milk
50 g butter
250 g poppy seeds (partially ground)

Make the dough:
Heat the cream and butter for the dough together until butter is all melted. Put the flour in a mixing bowl and crumble the yeast over the top. Add the sugar, vanilla sugar, salt, eggs, and warm cream-butter mixture and mix until well combined. Knead for about 5 min, until the dough is smooth. Leave the dough covered in a warm place until it has doubled in size (about 45 min).

Make the topping (do this while the dough is rising):
Heat the butter with the sugar, vanilla sugar, honey and cream, slowly with stirring. Then boil for about 4 min with stirring, until the mixture becomes a little thick and caramel (it should become a little darker, and go from yellowish to light beige). Mix in the almonds. Allow to cool, stirring occasionally.

Assemble and bake the cake:
Heat the oven to 200C / 180C fan. Lightly grease a large rectangular baking tray (30 x 40 cm).

Sprinkle the dough with a little flour, remove it from the bowl, briefly knead on a slightly floured surface and roll/press out on the baking sheet. Spread the topping out evenly on the dough and let it rise again somewhere warm, until visibly enlarged (about 30 min). When ready, put in the oven for approx. 15 min, until golden brown on top. When ready, take out and leave to cool in the baking tray on a cooling rack, until completely cold.

Make the filling (do this while the cake is rising / baking):
Mix the custard powder with the sugar in a medium bowl. Gradually stir in approx. 12 tbsp of the milk. Bring the rest of the milk to the boil in a medium saucepan, remove from the heat and add the powder-sugar mixture, stirring well. Put the pan back on the heat and bring to the boil, and simmer for about 1 min until thickened. Add the butter and poppy seeds and stir; then leave to cool.

Fill and finish the cake:
When the cake and filling are completely cool, you can assemble the cake. Loosen the cake from the baking tray and halve it vertically. Take out one half and carefully cut in half horizontally. Spread half of the poppy seed mixture evenly over the lower part, then put the top back on. Repeat for the other half of the cake and the other half of the poppy seed mixture. Best eaten within 24 hours.


I was really pleasantly surprised by this recipe - the busy work takes a couple of hours, but the rising steps don't feel like a drag because there is always something else to do - making the caramel topping; making the custard-poppyseed filling; going to the shop again because you forgot to buy milk the first time... And it was actually really simple - apart from not managing to mix in the yeast very thoroughly and getting a slightly uneven rise, it came together incredibly well. Did I mention it is delicious? Another great example of German cakey brilliance: really sweet parts (topping) are so well balanced with not so sweet parts (filling and cake); and there's loads of texture going on (light bread-cake; crunchy caramel almonds; toothsome poppyseed custard...). It was best within about 24 hours, but perfectly edible after that - it took us 5 days, but S and I ate it all.

Real Seelen

I first made something like Seelen for S (from this recipe) a few years ago, and he loved them! He didn't stop talking about them, and I made my approximation a few times since he liked them so much. They are regional bread from where he grew up in Germany, and apparently they are hard to get even elsewhere in Germany.
But I could never track down white spelt flour in the USA, not even in the fanciest grocery shops (or Eastern European ones). Not long after coming here, we went to Lidl (another German thing S loves), and found white spelt flour there! And pretty cheap too. So we decided that real Seelen were in order.

They don't take too many ingredients or special equipment, so it seemed do-able, even without my own kitchen. Finding the other ingredients was actually kind of a challenge. We had salt, that was fine and easy. I thought caraway might be easy too as it seems quite popular - there is a caraway seed cheese I see everywhere and want to try, but it only comes in gigantic blocks so haven't yet. But we didn't find caraway in any of the grocery shops we checked. The Turkish market had a bewildering selection of spices though, leading to a fairly lengthy debate between S+I over whether cumin (spidskommen) and caraway (kommen) seeds were the same or not (they're not! but he wouldn't believe it!). Anyway, we got the caraway there, and the next challenge was yeast, Again, I checked near the flour on the shelves of various grocery shops, until S found some in the fridge in a wholefoods shop - of course! Fresh yeast is the way here, dried yeast seems to be hard to find.

So, real seelen - not only with white spelt flour, but also with fresh yeast!

(makes 12 - I doubled the recipe as I had 1000g flour, 42g yeast, and no scales... and S loves seelen)

1000g white spelt flour
42g fresh yeast
600 ml warm water
4 tsp salt

For sprinkling: caraway seeds and coarse sea salt

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and knead all ingredients for about 10 minutes to get soft and fairly sticky dough.  Leave to rise in a warm place for about 60 minutes, kneading briefly after 20 min and after 40 min.

When the dough has risen turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and split in two.  With wet hands shape one piece into a square of about 20 cm.  Use a wet knife to cut the dough into six strips. Transfer the strips onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper.  Repeat with the other half of the dough (you'll need two baking sheets). Irregular shapes are fine, even good.  Cover with a clean dish towel and leave to rise for another 20 minutes.  Heat the oven to about 240C / 460F and place a bowl of water on the bottom shelf.

When the Seelen are ready to go into the oven wet them again with your hands and sprinkle with caraway seeds and coarse sea salt.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.


They definitely look different -lighter, more golden, with a very slight sheen. Perhaps a little more dense. But the taste is dominated by the caraway and salt so I find it hard to make out a difference in taste from the spelt. No complaints though, and it took us only two days to demolish the whole lot!

Gluten-free bread

I went to the woods today with A, D and K. We planned to have a picnic in the woods. I wanted to take something straightforward to eat, considered making these cookies again since everyone liked them and I wanted K to try them. But fancied something savoury. I realised I had never made a yeasted GF bread - I have made some excellent accidentally GF breads, but never one that was intended to take the place of a regular bread, to be sliced and toasted and so forth. I decided to try this recipe as a first pass (note, I had eggs from A's CSA needing used so the egginess was fine this time).

(makes one loaf in large loaf tin)

2 tsp dried yeast
pinch of raw sugar
1/2 cup (125ml) fake milk
3/4 cup (185ml) water
2/3 cup (115g) brown rice flour (subbed TJ's GF flour mix for brown rice flour and potato starch)
1/2 cup (85g) potato starch (subbed TJ's GF flour mix for brown rice flour and potato starch)
1/3 cup (60g) cornmeal
1/2 cup (62g) millet flour (ground millet seeds in spice grinder)
1/2 cup (56g) ground almonds
2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp fine desert salt
2 eggs, beaten lightly
4 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp cider vinegar
sesame seeds to sprinkle on top

In a small bowl combine yeast and sugar. Add warm water to the fake milk so that it reaches body temperature. Pour the milk mixture over the yeast/sugar and mix to combine. Set aside for 5 minutes to ferment.

Place all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and mix well with a fork. When the yeast starts to bubble, add it to the dry ingredients along with the remaining ingredients and mix to form a smooth batter. It will not become kneadable (more like cornbread batter), but will thicken slightly after you have mixed it for a few minutes. Pour into a greased loaf tin with a lined base, scatter the top with sesame seeds and set aside to prove.

Once the dough has nearly risen to the top of the pan (around an hour) turn your oven to 220C/425F. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown, then turn the oven down to 180C/350F and cook for a further 20-25 minutes or until done (should sound hollow when turned out and tapped). Cool on a wire rack. Slice when cold and store in the fridge.


I had trouble turning it out of the pan - would recommend lining the base. It bakes up well, with a nice crust. Slightly sweet - I might leave out or reduce the honey as the cornmeal is sweet on its own. Quite moist - perhaps it was slightly under (could also explain difficulty turning it out?). Pretty satisfactory though, and I always enjoy mucking around with different flours. I sliced it and took it to the woods along with some lentil dip and muesli muffins. Also ate some with this amazing Speculoos-cocoa vegan (but not GF) spread I found on a foray to TJs - too pretty to eat for about 5 sec (above), then too good to leave alone.

Zwetschgendatschi (Bavarian yeasted plum cake)

As soon as S saw the plums I harvested the other day, he said 'Zwetschgendatschi'. And I said '?' - the word is quite a tongue twister, and I knew plums as Pflaume and quetsch as squeeze... But then he sent me this recipe, and it seemed like a perfect use for the plums. Apparently these plums are the type of plum you most often see in Germany, and in the South they are called Zwetschgen. Some friends are having a nostalgia-themed equinox party tonight, and this seemed an appropriate thing to take along: my family had plum trees in the garden when I was growing up, so the process of harvesting, preparing and eating plums is nostalgic for me, while this particular yeast-doughed plum cake is quite nostalgic for S as he hasn't eaten it since he was living in Germany more than ten years ago.

I did a little research and found that Zwetschgendatschi comes with a few variables - the dough can be yeasted or can be more like a pastry or tart dough; the base can be flavoured with lemon rind or the topping with cinnamon; a streusel or crumble topping can be added on top of the plum layer. I consulted S and he favoured keeping things yeasted and simple: the only flavours in this version besides the mildly bready base are plum, toasted almond and brown sugar. I pretty much followed the recipe he sent me.

Classic version
(makes one baking tray's worth: mine was 34 cm x 23 cm and technically a roasting tin)

300 g plain flour (plus a bit more for dusting)
2 tsp active dry yeast
50 g sugar
100 ml lukewarm almond milk
50 g fake butter (at room temperature)
1 medium egg (at room temperature) - or 1 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 2.5 tbsp boiling water
a pinch of salt
~700 g Zwetschgen (damson or prune plums)
~2 tbsp demerara sugar
50-75 g flaked almonds

Put the flour in a mixing bowl and make a well in the middle. Put the yeast in the well, sprinkle some sugar over it and pour enough lukewarm milk in to cover the yeast. Stir briefly, then cover the bowl with a tea towel and put in a warm place for 15-20 min, until the yeast starts to bubble.

Add the rest of the milk and sugar, butter, egg and salt. Knead until the dough forms a smooth ball, then continue to knead for ~5 min (?). If it is too sticky sprinkle with flour, but try not to add too much flour. Cover the bowl again and leave to rise in a warm place for about an hour, until doubled in size.

Meanwhile prepare the plums: Cut in half lengthwise, remove the stone and then cut each half lengthwise again to make quarters. Set aside.

Heat the oven to 355F (180C). Line the baking tray with paper (or brush with oil). Roll the dough out on a clean, floured work surface until it is about the size or the baking tray, then carefully transfer it to the baking tray and pull into shape.

Arrange the plum quarters in overlapping rows, cut side up. Sprinkle evenly with demerara sugar and flaked almonds (use as much or as little as you like, to your taste). Put in the oven and bake for 25-30 min, checking after 20 min to make sure it is not too dark underneath. Remove and let cool in the tray before cutting into squares.


Gluten-free vegan experimental version
(makes 4 mini tart-sized ones in a muffin tin)

50 g TJ's gluten-free flour mix
25 g ground almonds
3/4 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp baking powder
tiny pinch salt
12.5 g sugar
12.5 g fake butter
25 ml almond milk
1/4 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 3/4 tbsp boiling water
3 plums, quartered as above
~ 2 tsp demerara sugar
1-2 tbsp flaked almonds

Heat oven to 355F. Mix flour, ground almonds, xanthan gum, baking powder, salt and sugar in a medium bowl. Make a well and add butter, milk and linseed mixture. Mix with a fork and then with your hands until it comes together into a pliable dough. Line muffin cups and press the dough into the bases / up the sides. Arrange the plum quarters on each (I found three quarters per cup fitted), sprinkle with demerara sugar and flaked almonds, and bake for 20-25 min.


Both were great. The classic one was awesome in its lack of intense sweetness (I could perhaps have been a bit more generous with the sugar but I liked it like this). S said it was authentic! And we both liked it - the bready part was slightly sweet and nicely risen, and the juices from the plum soaked in slightly to the bread base and to the almonds, making for a delicious thing somewhere inbetween a sweet bread and a cake - think typically German in the not-too-sweetness, the extensive use of fruit / nuts and simple flavours. The plum flavour really sung out because of that - the almonds and bread just served to complement their gorgeousness. The GF base was not as fluffy but stuck together well and the taste effect was similar. And they were cute in their little paper cases.

Note: this reminds me of Mum's apple cake that I attempted to make here. Perhaps another go at that is in order: I have some apples...

Banana skin cake

I came across this recipe a while ago and was intrigued. We recently had rather a lot of bananas (S+I both bought some at the same time), and I remembered about it, and decided to keep some out of the worm box and rather soak them for cake.

~4 banana skins, ends removed
water
ground linseed + boiling water (1 quantity = 1 tbsp linseed plus 2.5 tbsp boiling water)
sugar
veg oil
salt
self raising flour
yeast
cinnamon
lemon juice

Soak the banana skins in water for several days, changing the water every day, until they are soft and the water is clear (I soaked mine for 3-4 days).

Transfer the banana skins to a blender (with enough water to let it blend properly). Blend until smooth. It will be dark brown and murky. Strain, reserving both the thick puree and the thinner run-through liquid. Measure the puree (the ~4 banana skins I started with gave me 3/4 cup of puree).

Heat oven to 350F. In a medium bowl, per 1 cup of puree, add 1 quantity linseed mixture, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup oil and 1 tsp salt. Beat until well incorporated. Add 1 cup of flour and 1 tbsp yeast (per 1 cup banana skin puree), and mix until just combined. Transfer the batter to prepared cake (or muffin) tin (I made muffin size, as it makes it easier to freeze and defrost portions). Bake for 30-40 min (baking time will depend on size of cake(s)), until a skewer comes out clean and it looks done.

To make a glaze from the reserved liquid, measure the volume in cups. For every cup, add 1 cup sugar. Put sugar and liquid into a saucepan. Add 1/2 tsp cinnamon, a pinch of salt, and a few drops of lemon juice. Simmer for 10-20 min, stirring occasionally, until it is reduced by about half and thickened. It will be quite thick, but smooth, and dark brown.


I didn't really think this would be any good - made it more out of curiosity and as an exercise in using stuff up - but it is good. It's like a sticky toffee pudding, with the sauce and everything. The cakes are dense and taste rich and toffee-y (note: I used plain flour instead of SR - perhaps they would have been fluffier if I'd remembered to add baking powder). Ugly though: dark brown cake and dark brown sauce. Additions of crystallised ginger or raisins or spices might be good. I might also try using the puree similarly to pumpkin puree in other recipes.