Donauwellen

English version below

Eigentlich fand ich früher Donauwelle nie so gut. Ich kann mir nicht ganz erklären warum, weil die, die Mr. Squirrel letztens gemacht hat großartig war!

Beeren-Creme-Torte | Berry Cream Cake

English version below

Zu Ostern kommt bei uns immer die ganze Familie zusammen und alle bringen was mit. So muss nicht einer alleine alles vorbereiten und wir bekommen eine tolle Mischung aus Gerichten zusammen. Ich hatte vor einigen Jahren schon mal den Oreo-Himbeer-Kääsekuchen (Rezept hier!) Diese Jahr wollte ich mich mal an einer Torte mit Cremefüllung versuchen. Und es hat gut funktioniert! :) Allerdings war es echt viel Arbeit - nichts für "mal eben schnell."

Schwedische Apfeltorte | Swedish Apple Pie

English version below


Keine Ahnung, warum der Kuchen schwedische Apfeltorte heißt. Aber so kenne ich ihn. :) Super um Äpfel zu verarbeiten, wenn sie nicht mehr so 100% bildschön sind - oder man spart sich Zeit in dem man direkt Apfelmus nimmt...

Lemon Rosemary Cakes

Die deutsche Übersetzung findet ihr unter dem englischen Rezept!

Lemon and rosemary just go together. So they have to be joined in cake. Or tiny cakes. 

Pumpkin Cheese Cake with a Dark Chocolate Cardamom Ganache

Die deutsche Übersetzung findet ihr unter dem englischen Rezept!

I have been told that "Pumpkin spice anything tastes like bilge water," and that "pumpkin pie is only good from the moment Thanksgiving dinner ends until the moment just after you have taken your first bite of it," and I accepted the challenge. I can't quite agree. At least not after I had a slice of this  Pumpkin Cheese Cake with a Dark Chocolate Cardamom Ganache. ^^ It's creamy and pumpkin-y and good!

Mississippi Mud Pie

Die deutsche Übersetzung findet ihr unter dem englischen Rezept!

Inspired by my friends over at the used to be guerilla Café Mousebear/soon to be an actual café Krümelküche, I made Mississippi Mud Pie for a friend's birthday.

These are the ingredients for a 26cm/10¼in springform:

Ingredients for the dough base:

• 260g of flour
• 30g of cocoa powder
• 200g of margarine
• 35g of raw cane sugar
• 3 table spoons of water

Ingredients for the chocolate cream filling:

• 50g of margarine
• 90g of raw cane sugar
• 2 table spoons of soy flour
• 2 table spoons of cocoa powder
• 50g of dark chocolate
• 100g of soy cream (or rice, oat, coconut cream etc.)

For the topping: 

• 300g of whippable vegan cream (if it's sweatened, great, if not, add some sugar)
• 50g of dark chocolate

Can't live without Apple Pie

Die deutsche Übersetzung findet ihr unter dem englischen Rezept!

We had apple crumble last week. I keep remembering how great apple desserts are. I usually love my desserts with chocolate, but the truth is: Apple desserts are great, too!

Ingredients:

For the crust:
250g flour
125g vegan butter (I used Alsan)
60ml water
40g of sugar
1/2 tea spoon of baking powder

For the filling:
850g of apples (this is the weight before you core, peel, and cut them)
300g of apple sauce [recipe for homemade apple sauce here]

For the crumble:
100g vegan butter (I used Alsan)
125g sugar
180g flour

A Vegan Café Start-up Business Needs Your Help!

tl;dr: Help out my awesome friends open a vegan café in Duisburg. Link to crowd funding project here.

I like cooking and baking and sharing food with other people. I guess it comes naturally that I surround myself with people who do the same. Friends of mine are currently planning to open a vegan café in the city of Duisburg in Germany. They have found a really nice location, a former handicrafts workshop, that is now being transformed into a cozy place where they can serve their yummy food.

Dennis & Sarah
photo by Marcus Kösters/camslinger.de

I have known Sarah and Dennis for quite a while now and love going to their guerilla café once a month. Guerilla what? Basically, they turn their living room and gaming room (oh yes, a room full of sofas and video games. Multiple screens, Super Mario decorations, old skool stuff and new games) into a café, Café Mousebear. You can sign up online, receive confirmation if there are still slots left (because... let's face it - they sell out quickly), show up, eat as much as you want, drink all the fair trade coffee you want and then donate as much as you want.

They have recently also introduced Gamer Nights. The concept is simple: You sign up online, show up, play all the board and video games you want, eat their delicious food (savory and sweet) and in the end donate as much as you want.

Their food is amazing! I am hereby officially blaming them for the size of my butt!

Chocolate Raspberry Cake Pops! Gluten-Free!

Have a few Euros to spare? Help my friends at the Café Mousebear (vegan guerilla living room café) open a real café to spread the vegan love! Check out their crowd funding campaign. Every Euro helps!

Some kitchen equipment is wonderful, some is entirely useless to me.

Useful: 

• A good knife!
• Food processor
• Apple slicers (if your laziness is keeping your from preparing a smoothie)
• muffin baking tins!
• a bains-marie

Useless: 

• Cake pop baking tins.

Seriously. Nobody needs those cake pop baking tins. I don't own one and that's not going to change. Friends of mine have tried them, only to complain about oddly shaped, not so great tasting, rather dry cake pops. Here is why you don't need one: You have hands (if not, I apologize for making this assumption). Making cake pops requires any cake tin that you already have, a good cake recipe, some other ingredients and hands that don't mind getting knuckle-deep in cake and jam. 

Ingredients for my Chocolate Raspberry Cake Pops:

Please not that you can really bake any cake as the cake basis for this. If you really love lemon cake pops, make a lemon cake!

• 200g of buckwheat flour (if you don't care about the gluten-free part, you can use any flour)
• 50g of cocoa powder
• 200g of sugar (I used unrefined raw cane sugar)
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 240ml of water 
• real vanilla or some vanilla flavor (I used vanillin sugar)
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 80ml of oil (sunflower, canola... just make sure it doesn't taste too strong)
• 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar

Raw Vegan Carrot Cake (no baking, no refined sugar!)

Last week I was truely excited to find that a free, vegan online magazine had been launched. The Vegan Food Magazine is a truely beautifully designed and interesting read! You can get your copy for free as a pdf on their website.

The pictures in the magazine were so mouth-watering, I had to try out a few recipes. I do wish they would release a paper copy of the magazine, so I could take it on the train, the couch or to bed with me (yes, I'm one of those dinosaurs who does not own a tablet), but also so I could take notes. The recipes I tried were in American cup measurements, which I find incredibly inconvenient. I have cup measures, but I prefer to weigh ingredients on my little scale. I have changed both recipes (the Raw Vegan Carrot Cake and the coffee cake that I will post later... it's still in the oven) a little, and I would have loved to write that down on my recipe copy. Oh well. I'll just keep track of my version in this blog. :) Speaking of recipes and blogs, here is the recipe for the carrot cake!

This looks pretty green, but that's just the light. It's actually a light orange-beige-y color.

Heads up: You will not need an oven, but you will need a food processor and a freezer, as well as a 15cm/6 inch spring-form pan.

Ingredients: