American Baker in Germany

 This is a German chocolate version of biscotti. Berliner Brot: 1 1/3 cups (200g) whole almonds 2 eggs 2 tbsp water 1 1/4 cups (250g) sugar 2 cups (250g) flour 1 tsp baking powder 3 tbsp cocoa powder 1 tbsp pumpkin spice or Lebkuchengewürz 1 tbsp rum (optional) 2/3 cup (225g) Zuckerrübensirup or molasses 2/3 cup (100g) dark chocolate, chopped Beat together the eggs, water and sugar.  Stir in flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, pumpkin spice, rum and molasses.  Fold in dark chocolate and almonds.  Pour batter into greased and lined baking dish.  Bake at 340°F or 175°C for about 30 minutes. Allow to cool. Cut into strips. These are soft and chewy when fresh with the lovely crunch of nuts. If you want them more firm, allow them to grow stale by sitting out at room temperature at least overnight, if not a few days. Then, they will grow harder, but will never get as hard as biscotti. But I love the flavor with the molasses, cocoa and pumpkin spice. Watch us make this...

This cake was for my own birthday. Comes around every year. This year, I wanted a maple cake. So, this is a 6-inch maple cake filled and frosted with maple Swiss meringue buttercream.  I also put the maple buttercream in two piping bags with medium open star tips. There was a lighter brown and a darker brown. If you saw my recipe on maple buttercream, I explain that it is naturally off white. But I feel that people don't taste a flavor properly unless it looks like it tastes like it does. So, I colored the majority of the buttercream with brown food coloring with a bit of red to warm up the color and I colored some of it a darker brown using the same method. I first started piping with the lighter brown. I piped a star border along the bottom of the cake. Then I piped a reverse shell border along the top edge of the cake. This is a twist in opposite directions: right, then left. Then I piped some swirls on top of the cake. And I piped a border along the top side of the cake. Then, ...

 I love maple. Almost as much as cinnamon. I decided it was time to make maple buttercream. Maple Swiss Meringue Buttercream: 7 egg whites 2 cups (400g) brown sugar 2 cups (500g) butter 1 tbsp maple flavoring 1/2 tsp salt Separate the eggs, putting the egg whites in a heat-safe bowl (either metal or glass). Whisk in brown sugar. The mixture will be thick. Heat over a double boiler until the mixture is thin, frothy, there are no sugar grains left and the mixture feels hot to the touch. It should be thin like this. Beat the sugar-egg mixture until it reaches room temperature. And is white and glossy and gorgeous.  It should also be about soft peaks. Beat in the butter about 2 tbsp at a time. Beat in maple flavoring and salt. Continue beating until the mixture reaches buttercream consistency.  The recipe is great because it basically doesn't have much color. It's basically off-white. Isn't that beautiful?  But, my experience is that people often don't think something ta...