American Baker in Germany

To celebrate the Tag der deutschen Einheit (German reunification day, basically German independence day, celebrated October 3rd), we are making a traditional German recipe. This recipe comes from the Black Forest in southern Germany. To make a Black Forest Cherry Cake, you need two (or more) thin layers of chocolate cake. I used my vegan chocolate cake. You also need a lot of whipped cream. I whipped a liter, but used around 3/4 of it. I also used a package of cream stabilizer (Sahnesteif, consisting of corn starch) and powdered sugar to stabilize the whipped cream. I used canned cherries, drained. I'm showing a small bottle of Black Forest Cherry Water (Schwarzwälder Kirschwasser), but we didn't use it since this cake will also be eaten by my small children. If you want to use it, it is typically used by soaking the cherries in the schnapps and some people brush it on the cake layers and let it soak in. We also used shaved chocolate to decorate the sides. I bought it because...

When I was doing my study abroad in college, I bought myself my first cuckoo clock. I loved it. I eventually ended up giving it to some friends when I moved to Europe, but I've always loved cuckoo clocks. How they look, the little cuckoo sound they make, even the ticking when it's not on the hour. I just love it. Cuckoo clocks traditionally come from the black forest area in southern Germany. Cuckoo clocks are really a tie for me to my love of Germany itself. I made some pieces ahead of time. Just ones I wanted to stick off the side a bit, so the fondant had to be dry. I used my wood texture mat, my bird cut outs, and three different leaf cut outs. Then I rolled out some chocolate fondant and textured it with my texture mat. Then I used my cut outs to cut out two birds and several different leaves. I freehanded the branches. I did see the little gaps in the texture, but I wasn't worried because I knew I would eventually cover them with the other decorations.  I a...

This cake was for a spontaneous event that we only decided to attend a couple hours beforehand. My husband asked what we could bring, and I remembered that I had some chocolate chip cake in the freezer. Within 20 minutes, this cake was ready to take. It's perfect for a spontaneous event or when you just don't have time to make a huge fancy cake, but you want everyone to think that you had... I start out by placing the first layer of chocolate chip cake on my cake carrier, stuck down with a bit of buttercream, and filled with vanilla buttercream with chocolate chips inside. Then I put the second layer of cake on top and crumb coated the cake.  Because the cake was so cold, the buttercream set up really quickly. So I could frost the cake really quickly afterwards. I frosted the cake with a thicker layer of buttercream and smoothed it really well.  Then I put the rest of the buttercream in a piping bag with an open star piping tip and piped 12 swirls on the top of the ...