According to Meike, my translator, a “puffer” in Northern Germany would be a “pot cake”, meaning a plain, stirred cake that is baked in a Bundt pan. I guess we would call it a bundt cake. This is quick and easy to make, but better suited for coffee or tea in the afternoon than served as an after dinner desert.

Puffer – Bundt Cake
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
4 cups cake flour (or 3-1/3 cup all purpose flour)
1 cup milk
2 tsp. baking powder
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. cardamom

Cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs and mix well. Add baking powder and spices to the flour. Alternate adding flour mixture and milk. Stir until batter is thoroughly mixed.
Carefully butter and flour the entire interior of a bundt cake pan. Pour batter into the bundt pan. Bake at 350°F for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of cake comes out clean. Take cake out of the oven and let it rest for a few minutes. Turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool. After cake is completely cool, ice with powdered sugar mixed with a little lemon juice, just enough to turn the sugar into thick, but pourable icing.

This recipe is super easy. It makes a tasty, dense cookie like a European biscuit-cookie—perfect to serve with coffee or tea. The fresh vanilla gives the cookies a lovely flecked appearance. For my taste, the cookies could stand to be stronger in vanilla, but vanilla beans are more expensive and I assume they were a precious ingredient in the 1920’s, as well. To shape the cookies, the recipe calls for forming the dough into little dumplings. After I kneaded it, I found it easier to roll the stiff dough, then cut it into slices.

1 cup butter
2 whole eggs
1 cup sugar
3-1/3 cups flour
1/2 vanilla pod or bean (or 1 tsp. vanilla extract)
2 tsp. hartshorn (or baking powder)

Cream butter, then add eggs and slowly add sugar, vanilla and flour. Knead everything together well. Form little dumplings from it. Bake for 10-12 minutes for small wafers (approx. 2 inches across) or 15-20 minutes for larger cookies. Cool the cookies on a wire rack.

I was inspired to make this recipe in honor of the huge snow storm this weekend, but it would be a great Valentine’s Day treat, as well. It’s easy to make, elegant, and very unique. It’s a mousse made by folding whipped cream into wine gelatin and topped with crumbled coconut macaroons.

März-Schnee (March Snow)
500 ml white German wine (I used a Riesling)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. plain gelatin
2 cups cold whipping cream

Bring wine, vanilla, and sugar to a gentle boil in a large pan. Once the sugar is dissolved, sprinkle in the gelatin and mix until the gelatin is dissolved. Remove from heat, cool, then chill in the refrigerator until the gelatin begins to thicken.

Pour cold cream into a mixing bowl. By hand, or with a mixer, whip the cream until it forms soft peaks. Fold the whipped cream into the thickening gelatin. Spoon the snow into bowls or wide-mouthed glasses and chill for a minimum of 2 hours.

Crumble macaroons over the top before serving.

Makronen (Macaroons)
1/2 cup sugar
1-1/4 cups coconut
2 egg whites
2 Tbsp. melted butter

Combine sugar, coconut, and egg whites. Mix in cooled melted butter. Drop egg-sized mounds onto a buttered cookie sheet (will make approx. 8 cookies). Bake for 16-17 minutes at 325° or until the macaroons are golden brown on top. The butter will make these cookies spread out on the cookie sheet, which is fine because it will provide more browned surface for the crumbled topping.

I have to say I’m a little disappointed that there’s only one recipe for strudel in the Castle Cook’s notebook. I love Strudel. This was my first strudel-making adventure and I had so much fun. One part of the recipe actually calls for lifting the dough over your head, then throwing it down on a hard surface 100 times. How fun is that! By expert strudel-making standards I’m sure my first attempt would rank as an abject failure. The dough was pretty tough. By fun-in-the-kitchen standards though, I’d rank it a “10”.

Kirchenstrudel (Cherry Strudel)
2-1/2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup warm water
4 cups pitted cherries
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup melted butter*

Mix flour and sugar together in a large metal bowl. Gradually add the warm water, mixing until it forms into a sticky ball. In the bowl or over a lightly floured cool surface, raise the dough above your head and then hit it hard against the surface about 100 times, or until the dough is smooth and elastic. (After 15 or 20 times it should no longer be sticky.) Knead the dough for another couple of minutes, then form it into a round ball. Lightly brush top of dough with cooking oil. Cover dough and allow it to rest 30 min.

Prepare the filling while dough is resting. Toss the cherries with sugar and cinnamon to coat evenly. Set aside for at least 30 min., stirring occasionally. If using canned cherries, drain well before tossing with sugar and cinnamon.

Cover a table with a clean sheet, allowing it to hang over the sides. Sprinkle it with flour. Place dough on center of cloth and roll it out as large as you can. If necessary, sprinkle more flour under dough so it does not stick. Brush off any flour on top, then brush top of the dough lightly with cooking oil (the oil aids in stretching the dough).

Lift the dough and gently, but steadily, pull the dough in opposite directions while it rests on your hands and forearms, being careful not to tear it. Lower the dough to table. Walking slowly around table, pull along the edges of the dough. Keep pulling and stretching, until the dough is as thin as tissue paper and drapes over edge of table. Trim off the thick outer edges.

Brush the dough with melted butter. Drain off excess liquid from the filling. Place the filling a strip, approximately 8 inches from one edge of the dough. Rolled the strudel, beginning at the filling end. Use the sheet to help you by grasping the cloth with both hands, then lift the cloth up and over the filling, folding the dough over. Lift the cloth back up, but leave the dough over the filling. Pull sheet toward you and begin to roll the strudel by lifting the cloth to help it roll. Once the strudel roll is complete, gently move it onto a greased baking sheet and forming it into a “c” or an “s” shape.

Bake at 350°F for 35 to 45 min. or until the strudel is golden brown. Brush it with butter several times during baking. The strudel is done when it is golden and makes a crackly sound when touched. Remove from oven and cool slightly, then sprinkle with powdered sugar. Cut with a serrated knife.

There is a a great video on YouTube about rolling strudel dough: Hungarian Cherry Strudel
Needless to say, I didn’t stretch my dough anywhere near the size of the table (maybe half the size). That was probably why my dough was so tough. However I think this is a skill I would like to practice and perfect. It would be a thrill to actually stretch a dough to table size!

*Note: The recipe in the castle cook’s notebook didn’t specifically call for butter, but all the examples recipes I reviewed used it and I couldn’t see how to get the strudel to brown nicely without it, so I added it.

Sachertorte with whip cream

After my fourth attempt at making this torte, I can be reasonably certain I have made the recipe correctly. The batter for this torte doesn’t rise very much, resulting in a rich, intense, dark chocolate cake. I made it in a 9″ springform pan, but I am recommending making it in a 8″ pan to make the torte a little taller. Although this recipe didn’t specifically call for apricot filling between the layers of cake, my research indicated that the apricot filling was a key to the identity of a Sachertorte, so I included it.

Sachertorte (Sacher Torte)

Cake:
1 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
7 eggs, separated
7 oz. softened unsweetened baking chocolate (7 squares)
3/4 tsp. lemon juice
3/4 tsp. vanilla sugar (or substitute regular sugar)
1 cup sifted cake flour

Filling:
6 oz. apricot jam
Water (to thin the jam to a spreadable consistency)

Glaze:
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup water
6 oz. softened unsweetened baking chocolate (6 squares)

Place wax paper at the bottom of an 8″ springform pan, then butter and lightly flour the bottom and sides of the pan. Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a double boiler, melt the chocolate for the cake. Remove from heat and let cool while you beat the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. When butter and sugar are creamed, add egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Drizzle melted chocolate into the batter, stirring constantly. Once chocolate is mixed in, set aside.

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites. When egg whites begin to froth, drizzle lemon juice into the eggs, beating all the while. When egg whites achieve soft peaks, add the vanilla sugar. Continue beating until the egg whites create stiff peaks.

First, fold 1/3 of the beaten egg whites into the chocolate batter, then fold in 1/3 of the flour. Continue alternating egg whites and flour, until completely incorporated into the chocolate mixture. Do not over mix. Pour batter into the springform pan and cook in a 350°F oven for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove cake from oven. Let rest for 10 minutes, then remove the springform ring and let cake cool on a wire rack. Cool completely before glazing.

When cake completely cooled, cut the thin top crust off the cake to level. Then slice the cake in half horizontally. Remove the top half of the cake. Mix enough water into the apricot jam to make it spreadable. Cover the top of the lower layer with the apricot jam. Then reposition the top layer on the cake.

To make the glaze, combine 3/4 cup water and 1-1/2 cups sugar in a sauce pan. Heat to boiling and boil gently for 15 minutes, stirring constantly, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add 6 oz. of baking chocolate and continue boiling until glaze begins to thicken and the graininess disappears from the chocolate (another 10-15 minutes). Remove from heat. Cool slightly (1 minute).

Place cake on wire rack over wax paper. Pour glaze over the cake, starting around the top edges and working inward to the center of the cake. Use a flat icing spatula to help covering the sides as the chocolate glaze pours over the edges. Cool completely.

Slice thin into thin wedges and serve with a dollop of whip cream.

The Process.

The cake didn’t rise in my first two attempts at making a Sachertorte. It tasted fine, but it was dense like a brownie.

Since I started receiving the translations, I have come to realize that the recipes in the Castle Cook’s notebook are more like cook’s shorthand than full blown recipes. For instance, here’s the translation for the recipe I tried this weekend:

Sachertorte
250 g butter
200 g sugar
8 eggs
200 g softened chocolate
1 spoon lemon juice
1 spoon vanilla sugar
120 g flour
Stir for 15 minutes. […] the foam of 6 eggs under, bake for 1 hour, chocolate filling over, whipped cream as well.

With just bare bones to start from, there is a lot of room for interpretation. Some parts are easy. It’s easy to convert metric measurement to U.S. equivalents. I also know that eggs were smaller in the 1920’s, so I can reduce the amount of eggs. From experience and by looking at similar recipes, I can make a decent guess at cooking instructions and even know what the finished product should look like.

The tricky part comes when there are ingredients that don’t seem to fit. In this case, lemon juice and vanilla sugar. I took a guess that they were unique flavorings, so I mixed them in the batter before I folded in the beaten egg whites. Wrong! My cake didn’t rise. I even tried it again, just to make sure I hadn’t made some baking faux pas. Same disappointing result. Both cakes were stunted and dense, which is great if you are trying to make brownies, but discouraging if you were hoping to end up with a cake. Back to the internet for a little research.

I found this site called Baking 911. It’s full of baking techniques and baking science. A little like Myth Busters for baking. What I discovered is that the lemon juice and vanilla sugar should have been added while beating the egg whites. Sugar helps stablize beaten egg whites and an acid, like lemon juice, helps prevent overbeating. I guess it’s back to the kitchen for me…