Some Like it Hot

Devils food cake with tart sour cherry jam and nutella butter cream frosting

So in July we celebrated DH’s birthday, and one of the things he always asks for is chocolate cake. Being the wonderful wife that I am I decided to make him a cake. I searched through a lot of recipe books but nothing appealed to DH until I decided to take matters into my own hands. I decided that I would start off with a recipe from Cooks Illustrated, and modify the recipe.

Now, I love sweets, but sometimes the cakes and cookies are way too sweet, and I have to reduce the sugar. I cannot follow a recipe no matter how hard I try most days. I must tweak it to my taste, and before you say anything I did taste this recipe as is, when I made it with J (not Jo). I liked it but I perfer a much more dense, and sweet cake. So, my cake has less sugar but more brown sugar to white sugar. I also wrapped and placed the cake in the freezer over night, and defrosted it before frosting.

My cake was dense, and so much chocolate flavour to knock your socks off. I also added a bit of very bitter chocolate to the cake. I filled the cake with home made sour cherry jam I made this summer and wow did it pop! I used the butter cream recipe and scraping a jar clean of Nutella, but the nutella taste was weak, and I had tons of frosting left over that I threw the rest out. But the weak nutella flavour seemed to be a nice foil for the chocolate and sour cherry.

DH was extremely happy, the cake got better as the days went on. The cake was fragile on the first day, but it seemed to have its own gravity well, by the second day in the frigerator. The flavour was best on the 2-4 days. We also ate a slice of cake about a week and a half later and it was still tasty!

You will have to hunt down your own recipe for the sour cherry jam or go and buy a jar. Also I will not post the nutella butter cream recipe because I wasn’t too happy with it, and will have to tinker a bit. Now if you really want the recipes e-mail me, because I am too nice and can’t say no?

So here is the devils food cake with a lot of changes. Oh I go between grams and oz because my scale can’t seem to go in oz that low but it does really well in grams.

Side view. It's hard to see the 3 layers but they are there! The cake was very dense, chewy fudgy goodness.

DEVILS FOOD CAKE
Adapted from Cooks Illustrated

1.4 oz Semi sweet chocolate (I used Belgium chocolate)
3 oz Unsweetened chocolate (I used a German Zarbitter chocolate)
0.8 oz Valhrona dutched cocoa powder
1 1/4 C. boiling water (next time I would use hot Coffee)
3.7 oz A.P. Flour
8 g Baking Soda
1 g Salt
8 oz Butter
6.6 oz Brown Sugar
4.6 oz Sour Cream

Have the oven rack in the middle position, and preheat your oven to 350 degrees. You may need another rack on the lower part of the oven to fit all three-cake pans. Grease three 8-inch diameter cake pans. Then place parchment paper on the bottom of the tins and grease again. I floured my cake tins with cocoa powder.

Combine all the chocolate and cocoa powder and pour in the boiling water, mix till everything is combined and the chocolate have melted. In another bowl mix the flour baking soda and salt and then sift onto parchment paper or back into the bowl. You will be alternating ingredients so just make sure it will be easier to pour in dry ingredients.

Beat the butter until creamy, and the sugar and beat again until it fluffs. You may have to scrape the bowl. Mix in the eggs one at a time and beat on medium speed, add the other eggs after the first is incorporated. Add the sour cream and vanilla and mix until combined. On low speed add in the 1/3 of the flour followed by 1/2 of the chocolate mix until barely combined you should end using the flour. Using a spatula gently mix the cake batter until all flour is combined.

Evenly divide the batter into the cake tins. Bake cakes all the middle rack or places them on the middle or lower racks. Bake the cakes until you have moist crumbles on the toothpicks, but not wet. It took me about 15-20 minutes. You will have to watch your cake.

Take out the cake and let cool for 1/2 hour in the tin. Carefully take out the cake and wrap in plastic wrap and freeze. The cake is delicate so be careful. I froze my cake over night and let it defrost in the frigerator. This makesthe cake more denser, and the flavours seem to meld better.

When the cake is fully defrosted level the cake if they need it, and fill and frost with your favourite filling.

I filled it with homemade sour cherry jam, and then made a nutella butter cream frosting. I would recommend you chill the cake in the frigerator but it doesn’t need it.

DH and I decided we needed lunch but I had just finished mopping the kitchen floor. Yeah, the floor was wet and well I couldn’t walk in there with my feet… Yeah so I got out of cooking lunch, because we had to let the floor in the kitchen dry.

We were a little indecisive, about where to eat at first but remembered a place in downtown Stuttgart that had coffee and sold sandwiches and soup.

We decided to go to San’s Sandwich Bar, I noticed this place while we were sitting at another cafe drinking coffee. It seemed to always be crowded at lunch time, DH and I usually eat breakfast and luch a bit earlier then the crowds, and need a snack by the time lunch crowd came out.

There is a small case in front near the register which looks like ciabatta and foccacia sanwiches. There is also a large refrigerated sections with salads, sandwiches, desserts, muesli and fruit. There are huge lamp shades in orange red that hang from the ceiling. Everyone is friendly and can speak alittle english, but we tried out limited german. It is a really nice place, with long tables on really high stools, but then again I am pretty short. They offer different soups, salads, cereals, sandwiches, and drinks. I was really enticed by a customer carrying a bowl of soup with blue berries on top. So, I opted for the Kartoffel Pfifferling soup, a potato and chanterelle soup with crème fraîche. It came with chive garnish, and three lovely blue berries on top. Also it had a healthy bit of crème fraîche that had sunk to the bottom of the soup. DH swirled the soup and it went from clear broth to creamy white. The potatoes were soft but still a little firm so they didn’t turn to mush when you bit into them. The chanterelles were generous and plentiful, and golden against the creamy white soup. Yeah this was outstanding soup. The soup came with three pieces of bread, a slice of french, and two slices of dark bread with nuts and seeds.

DH “Yeah we can’t eat this all the time but the soup is excellent!”

DH pulled a Thai Sandwich from the deli case, and we were intrigued to see what it would taste like. It had some kind of mayo or schmaltz maybe smeared on the bread. The bread was softer then most german breads, but still denser then white. It had lettuce and red bell peppers, and pickled ginger, and turkey marinated in something. I cannot place the taste, but the sandwich was delicious. You can have your bread toasted from the front counter, but we opted not to have the bread toasted this time. Dh thought he tasted some lemon grass but found the pickled ginger delicious and did not taste the lemon grass at all.

Me: I so could make this sandwich at home, but it sure is tasty.

I am glad I ate the sandwich first because the sandwich was delicious, but the soup stole the show. It made a nice light lunch, and the place is pretty popular with the lunch time business and tourist. The last time DH and I were there we had the house coffee which was quite good. the prices there aren’t bad. The soup was excellent and the sandwiches are good, but we haven’t tried everything there yet. I wouldn’t definitely go back there again! For 2 bottled waters, one sandwich and one soup landed us at 12.30 euro, not too bad and both of us were full. I would say that for someone used to eating a lot more might be hungry so you might not want to share, and if you have the potato and chanterelle soup make sure you get your own bowl or you might fight on your hands.

San’s Sanwich Bar
Kleiner Schloßplatz 13
70173 Stuttgart, Germany

I wish I had may camera when I first got to Germany, because it seemed there were a lot food porn. I mean ads on how to stop AIDS. The use of food and condoms were visually interesting, and hopefully it would/will get the message out. The ads have started up again, but so far I have not seen as many of the variety of fruits and vegetables used in the ads last year. So I leave with you with the first ones I have seen in the train station this year. Click on the picture to enlarge.

I will be posting the cherry chocolate cake birthday cake soon.

I find so much joy
in small toasted squares of crusty bread
slathered with unsalted butter

Okay! Enough! I have no muse or patience right now to write a poem…Nyah!

YAY! I have a toast automat, a toaster in english, and I am so happy. I haven’t had decent toast in a year, and I finally broke down and bought a toaster. Who would have thunk that I would miss toast so very much.

I miss a lot of foods from California, but I can tell already that I would be missing food stuff Germany if I left now. I haven’t posted in such a long time, and I finally got some pictures uploaded to the computer, so crossing fingers and praying hard to get them all to the blog! Well at least some pictures anyways.

So, the weather here is been quite wonky, hot for awhile, then rainy, then very cool with wind, then hot and humid and windy. Right now we have rain…I just don’t want it to snow! I hope summer lasts all the way through September but I am not counting on it. I think all of my culture shock and homesickness has gone away, well mostly and I will be more willing to post. HUGZ

Missed you all!

I am still here. The weather is wonky, but I have 4 kilos of sour cherries! mmmm

So I have updated the new software for wordpress, and I am currently testing it out. I promise I will upload some pictures sometime this weekend. I have a lot of photographs to sort through.

Yeah, I am sure you have heard that a million times, but I miss all my bloggy friends, and all my other friends as well. Sorry the winter blues had me hard. I mean I have been living in california a little too long and well it was a shocker when the temp dipped. I had to readjust to the temperature and the fact that I still can’t really talk in German, and so my interactions with anyone not speaking english is rudimentary, and short. There isn’t many people near me who I can talk to and coupled with it being cold I have been in the house, cooking like mad, forgetting to take photographs of anything, and basically being blue.

But don’t feel all sad for me I have always been getting out to the city on the weekends, and the chocolates here are amazing, and not to mention the french fries! Man they are like crack! DH is loving the beer, and I do have to say I hated beer in the states, but I love the beer here. Well so far I like Hefeweizen, and umm…variations on weizen.

Christmas was awesome here in germany, and yes I went to Stuttgart Weinachtmarkt (Christmas market) yeah it rocked. I have a lot of pictures to upload so, maybe the next couple of posts will have mainly pictures. YAY!

Also Fasching was interesting we ended up seeing a local city fasching which was great for us as it ran through our fresh market on sat. Yeah I got feather tickled by a masked person. I will write about that later. Lets just say it was a really nice celebration locally.

I also found a four story bookstore in Stuttgart and they actually had some books in english, which I am happy about.I am contemplating getting a small book on baking german breads, but it is all in german. Maybe that will help with my language skills; at least the reading and writing part. This bookstore also has a lovely coffee shop Holanka indoors that makes wonderful cappuccinos. There is another one located near the Rathaus in Stuttgart too.

I am also addicted to a german cooking show called Essen und Trinken I am trying to pick up german by watching cooking shows! It has helped some as it has tuned my ears to hear german and I do pick up a word or two, but the jury is still out. The cooking show is interesting, with two older hosts and that seem animated. I like the fact the camera gets ups and personal and you can see them chopping and cooking. It helps when they give directions and I can pick up verbs, nouns etc. . There are other cooking shows but I can’t seem to pick up anything as the camera is further away from the actual cooking.

Well I probably should stop typing now since I had a glass of beer and with my allergies are feeling the effects of it greatly. Drunk typing is not a good type of sport. I have problems typing normally, so I will sign off for now.

Yes, it is winter, and I am worried. Remember I am a California tranplant, in the temperate part of California.When I lived in California I could drive to the snow, and come back to nice weather in winter. I am however not in California anymore.

I have been sitting here writing about german food, and looking fearfully out the window. It has rained, snowed, rained, hailed, rained, snowed, snowed, rained, and now blowing bits of snow. It seems the weather hasn’t decided if it wants to rain or snow, and what the heck lets throw in some hail. Yeah I love it here in Germany but man the weather seems fickle the last couple of days. I love the beautiful falling snow, but is it cold. I have socks on, the heater is on, and I am still cold. Well that would be only half the truth I am warm except my toes. We have radiators for heaters which do a pretty god job, unfortunately we haven’t any curtains to cover a huge window in the livingroom. Alas cold toes will have to last until we can get to the store.

I just hope everyone is warm and safe today, as I try to reheat my toes, and figure out where in the world my camera cable is located. And maybe talk hubby into bringing some of that Good German Beer home. I mean it couldn’t hurt to imbibe a little and maybe it will warm up my toes a bit.

Hmmm Next post pomme frite and nudlen

Some of you are telling me that your life is boring compared to mine, but I would like to say Phooey! I think it is in how you see your life and what you are doing. I mean there are times I think my life is boring even though I live in Germany! But let me tell you a small vignette, about excitement.

My laundry room with my washer and dryer is located in the basement of the next building. Lets just say usually I never do laundry here any more mainly because I have a vivid imagination and it thinks of vile and scary beasts that roam the halls of the basement. Already pretty exciting, no?

DH is the laundry king here because well he is fearless and brave. Well until I tell him all the scary things my brain thinks up, but then he threatens me with bodily harm and still braves the basement of doom. Well anyways usually Dh is pretty on top of the laundry even though he works nine hours and travels two hours back and forth to work. DH lately hasn’t been on top of the laundry because he is taking an accelerated database class and it is seriously time consuming.

So, DH was lamenting about the piled laundry and me being home most of the time volunteered to brave the basement of doom. DH looked skeptically at me and shrugged his shoulders and said I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t feel up to doing the laundry. I bravely shrugged my shoulders and said I would at least put a load or two in the wash.

Next day, I procrastinated going down the basement to do the laundry. I did everything to stall the process, but I didn’t want to let my husband down, so I took my keys, and a load of laundry and left my warm secure apartment. I took a big breath and opened the lights to the storage area that leads to the other building. The storage area is a long hallway lines with metal ceiling to floor cages that are divided so people can store extra furniture etc. I ran down the hallway, and into the entranceway to other building I opened the door to the laundry room and waited till the light turned on, and tried not to think about killers, rapists, and vampires dripping blood from their teeth.

The laundry room is divided into two rooms. The first room is very large. It is where clothes are hung to dry and has a sink near the entranceway into the smaller of the two rooms. The smaller room carries the washers and dryers. Each person has their own personal washer and sometimes dryer. It takes two hours to wash and load and another two hours to dry a load.

I loaded the washer, and filled it up with soap and revved that puppy up, and then checked the dryer. You see we have a condenser for a dryer and you need to remove the water it collects from the clothes. I unloaded the water into the sink in another room away from the washing machines, and then something brushed my back. I jumped nearing dumping the foot and 1/2 container that was draining in the sink. Luckily it was only some clothes drying on the line near the sink. Finished draining the water and went to replace the water collector, and checked inside the dryer. Clothes were still wet, restarted it and then grabbed the laundry basket using it as a shield ran out of the laundry room. I opened the door to the storage room and ran for my life!
Ahhh safely back into my building I climbed the stairs to my apartment and placed the keys inside. Click rattle. Strange the door won’t open. I try turning it the other way, and then back again to open the door. I push the door open, and nothing happens. I start to lean into the door to push it open. Nothing. Crap. Go down stairs to check my key, and yes it is the right key. Then I approach my apartment door and try again. Nothing.

I start to panic, because I don’t have anyone I can call, as my cell is inside my apartment. Crap! I start fiddling with the lock turning this way and that. I am near tears right now, because I don’t know how to ask the neighbors if I could use their phone. But then I am really going to cry because I don’t know the number to my husbands work. I jerk the key out and slam it back in and turn it furiously to the right and lean all of my weight to the door. It opens! I nearly collapse on the on floor of the apartment because I am so happy.

I decide I am never doing laundry here again!

Food reports coming up next. Need to load photographs.

If you like 80’s music from the U.S. you will like it here in Germany. Not to say that is all they play, but a lot of the radio stations here play music form the U.S. and other english speaking countries. Oh! Not to mention they do play songs from Spain and other plarts of the European Union. It is actually hard to hear songs sometimes by German artist, now I am new here so I could be completely wrong but I haven’t found one that plays mostly German artist songs. I will hoever leave you with some of my favourite songs and artists I have come to like in Germany. Eventhough I may not quite understand everything they are saying. Let be frank here Google translator helps but it doesn’t really do an awesome job. Anyways I hope you enjoy these videos.

Please check out the artist themselves, if you really like their songs.

Xavier Naidoo Abschied Nehmen

Xavier Naidoo-I’ve Never Seen

Culcha Candela Ey DJ

Culcah Candela Hamma

Die Fantastischen Vier - Einfach sein

Die Fantastischen Vier - Vier-Millionen Legionen-Live