Baumkuchen

Ok, so our German is hopeless, but our cake making skills are not half bad. At least we think so. We dug up a slightly yellowed old recipe this past week. Simon got it years ago from a German pastry cook, a grumpy but endearing old woman who taught him most of what he knows about cakes.

A baumkuchen is, in more familiar language, a tree cake, supposedly one of the most treasured creations in the German bakery. It’s created in layers with a pastry brush, each layer cooked under the salamander or grill. The end result looks wonderful and doesn’t taste half bad either.

Give it a try!

Ingredients:

300 grams good quality butter
300 grams of sugar
finely grated rind of one lemon
6 eggs
A dash of rum
100 grams of finely crushed nuts
150 grams of cornflour
150 grams of plain flour

Method:

Cream together the butter, sugar and lemon rind for a good 15 minutes, adding eggs slowly and one at a time.

Add remaining ingredients and mix for a further 5 minutes.

Grease a medium sized cake tin. With a pastry brush, brush a small amount of mixture into the base of the tin (similar to a crepe) and place under the salamander of grill until nicely cooked. Continue doing so, cooking each layer, one on top of the other until the mixture is used up.

Let the finished cake cool then tip out of the tin. Leaving upside down, coat the cake (top and sides) with a thin layer of copha-based chocolate icing. To make the icing, add around 30 grams of melted copha to 150 grams of sifted icing sugar mixed with 30 grams of cocoa.

Let the cake sit for at least an hour or so, preferably a day, before slicing it through and serving with a good coffee or a hot chocolate.

Enjoy!

Comments

[Tom]

SI there any places we can buy good baumkuchen?? I live on Gold Coast Queensland. So if you know any shops near by, please let me know. Thanks.

[Yan]

Hi Ali and Simon,

Excellent blogs! Just like to point out that Anna, my wife, makes baumkuchen the original way. Check out this link: http://kumpulrebo.multiply.com/photos/photo/6/1?

Cheers,
Yan

[cin]

baumkuchen is very similar to the Indonesia layer cake in appearance, however the latter is flavoured with spices instead. some japanese grocery stores sell baumkuchen - look in the freezer section.