Monday, May 5, 2008

Baumkuchen - Tree Cake (aka. Happy Belated Birthday Josh)

A cake with many layers, this cake is suffused with rum and vanilla sugar. A cake that takes quite a lot of time due to the baking process this is one of my husbands favorite cakes.

Ingredients: Cake
Egg whites of 4 medium eggs
250g soft butter
250g sugar
2 Tbs. vanilla sugar
Pinch of salt
2 whole medium eggs, and 2 yolks
4 Tbs. rum
150g plain flour
100g cornstarch
3 level tsp. baking powder
Ingredients: Choc Coating
200g milk chocolate (chopped)
4 tsp. cooking oil

Method: Cake
1. Grease a bread tin, and line the bottom with baking parchment.

2. Preheat the grill, and make sure the oven rack is around 20cm (8 inches) away from the grill.

3. Beat the eggs whites until stiff. Set aside.

4. In a large bowl using an electric whisk whisk the butter until smooth.

5. Add the sugars (including the vanilla sugar) and salt, and whisk until the mixture thickens.

6. Add the two whole eggs, whisking for 30seconds between each.

7. Add the egg yolks and whisk for 30sec. between additions.

8. Add the rum and whisk again until smooth and homogeneous.

9. In a smaller bowl add the flour, cornstarch and baking powder, and with a fork mix together until well combined.

10. Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture in two stages, beating with a wooden spoon between additions.

11. Gently fold in the eggs whites.

12. Using a pastry brush, spread 1 Tbs. of the batter on the bottom of the cake tin and bake until a rich golden brown. Repeat this process (adding 1Tbs. of batter to the top of the previously baked layer) until all the batter has been used. Make sure you keep an eye on it, if the layers begin to bake too quickly either turn the grill down or move the baking shelf lower.

13. Run a knife around the outside of the cake, and remove from the tin onto a wire rack. Remove the baking parchment.

14. Allow to cool to room temperature.

Method: Choc Coating
1. In a bain marie add the chocolate and oil together, and allow to melt. We want a nice smooth chocolate coating, so make sure to keep stirring until it has smoothed out.

Method: Icing
1. If you baked your cake in a slightly sloping pan, you can cut the edges to make sure they are square.

2. Pour around 1/2 of the chocolate on top of the cake and spread evenly over cake.

3. Wait for the chocolate icing to adhere and harden (you can place it in the fridge and it should be hardened in around 15min).

4. Add another layer of chocolate.

Taken from: Dr.Oetker: German Baking Today