“The ones with the dots have peel in them.” The Snook baked homemade HCB. ❤️🐰
Tag: baking
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Swedish-style cinnamon rolls, homemade by the Snook! ❤️
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Happy Birthday to Me
My 44th birthday has come and gone. 🎂 Normally we like to go out to a fancy restaurant, but with everything still closed due to Covid, that wasn’t happening. Instead the Snook ordered us a four-course takeaway meal from Mural Restaurant, a local Michelin-starred place, which he then assembled according to the instructions.
We also had lovely matching wines which came in cute little numbered bottles…
The first course was spinach ravioli with cauliflower puree and tarragon oil, paired with 2019 Scheuermann Grauburgunder. Also sourdough bread with beetroot butter (which was quite sweet!).
Second course: steak (cooked in butter, garlic, herbs) served with parsnip puree and braised onion, along with a 2017 Blaufränkisch Kirchholz. The steak had been cooked sous vide, so all he had to do was brown off the exterior in some herb butter and slice it up.
Then it was time for dessert! A little slice of buckwheat cake with white chocolate ganache and citrus compote, paired with a 2019 Riesling Röttgen Kabinett.
The very final course was cheese! A spread of a few special Swiss cheeses and chutney, served with a 2012 Gewürztraminer Goldert Grand Cru. The chutney was very savoury – almost like an onion jam.
On my actual birthday, the Snook said he was going to bake me a cake. As you know, he’s really good at this. I’ve had the epic swimming pool cake, the potato-chip beaked duck cake, an over-the-top “bûche de Noël,” and many more. A few days before, he asked me what sort of design I wanted. “Something Moomin-ish,” I said. And what flavour of cake? “Funfetti. You know, sprinkles.” With that as the brief, he went to the supermarket for supplies…
He baked the cake (from scratch, of course!) in a giant sheet, and he also made German buttercream for the icing.
Then he cut the cake into six pieces and stacked them with layers of icing in between before starting to sculpt. “The trick,” he said, “is to cut away everything that isn’t Little My.” Everything he cut off, he stuck back on to help build out the shape.
Then it was time for more icing and decoration! Her eyes were made with “Oblaten” (edible German baking wafers that you use to make Christmas cookies), her hair was strawberry gummy strings, and her face details were done with licorice string. She had a few Smarties as buttons down her back, and a red bow to complete the look.
HOW GREAT IS THIS? I’M LITTLE MY, AND I LIKE TO BITE THINGS.
He’s very talent, and I am a very lucky girl!
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While I was sewing, the Snook surprised me with homemade “Zimt-Schnecken” (cinnamon rolls)! 🐌
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Feeling about 96% recovered from tonsillitis. Woke up to the aroma of freshly baked soda bread (courtesy of the Snook), which I ate with honey from beehives at the AWS Munich office. 🍯🐝❤️ #beepeculiar @hereataws
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Bûche de Noël
The Snook is a big fan of Stella Parks’s recipes, and at some point in the last year, I bookmarked her Classic Chocolate Yule Log with the idea of challenging him to make it for Christmas. Folks, I didn’t think he’d actually do it. I throw out these ridiculous schemes and he’s usually game for an attempt, but I figured with this one, he’d roll his eyes and settle for something simpler. Instead he blew me away. I mean, look at that! THERE’S A PISTACHIO PASTE FROG. This is literally 200% better than I expected, and I knew he was a good baker. I’m still amazed, and we’ve already eaten most of it. Lucky for you, he documented a great deal of the preparation.
This was a multiple day endeavour, and it all started with him making the homemade pistachio paste. We ended up ordering the pistachios from Amazon.de, because they were the only ones we could find that weren’t already roasted and salted. We couldn’t find orange flower water at all, so he just left it out.
The next day, he toasted sugar in a skillet in the oven. He took that photo to show the difference in the toasted sugar vs. untoasted.
The next step was to use the pistachio paste to make pistachio buttercream frosting. He ended up doing a lot of complicated math to adjust the quantity of the recipe, but all you need to know is: he had to separate some eggs, mix them with the toasted sugar, and add booze. Then he cooked the mixture over a makeshift double-boiler until it reached the appropriate temperature. Then he whipped it in the KitchenAid, added loads of butter, and then eventually the pistachio paste. The end result looked a lot like guacamole!
Next up were the meringue mushrooms. For these he had to mix egg whites with toasted sugar and vanilla (we couldn’t find cream of tartar so he used a tiny bit of vinegar) and then again cook this mixture on the double-boiler. Then he whipped it up, put it in a piping bag, and piped out dozens of mushroom caps and stems. He used his finger to smooth the points, and they cooked in a low oven for the better part of a day. He finished them by rubbing on cocoa powder to look like dirt.
On the final day, it was time to bake the cake. He used one of our oven trays and spread the batter, and then baked it for only 12 minutes (because it’s so thin). He took it out and let it cool to nearly room temperature. Then he spread on the pistachio buttercream and rolled it up. He left it rolled up to set for a short time, and we were amazed to see that it didn’t crack at all! He cut off a bit to fashion the branch…
…and then it was time to decorate! He made chocolate ganache (with cream, melted chocolate, and sugar) to ice the log and to glue the mushrooms together, and he used fork tines to sculpt the “bark”. He dusted the whole thing with cocoa and pistachio dust, and he used some of the leftover pistachio paste to fashion a tiny tree frog. Isn’t it AMAZING? The best part is that it tastes so good – like the chocolate cake of your dreams. He’s the best. ❤️ Thanks, Snookums…
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Apfelkuchen – before and after! 🍎🍰
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Honig-Zimt-Kekse (Honey Cinnamon Cookies) homemade by the Snook… 😋
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Because why wouldn’t you bake a Quarantine Celebration Carrot Cake the size of your head? 😂❤️🥕🍰
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Uh, yes. That is a lot of cake.