American Baker in Germany

This is a recipe that I grew up with. My mother made these for us regularly. And I still love them today. Frosted Chewies: 1 cup (235g) peanut butter  1 cup (200g) sugar 1 cup (225mL) corn syrup 6 cups (around 230g) of dry, plain cereal like Rice Krispies or Corn Flakes Around 200g of chocolate (optional) Pour sugar and syrup into a saucepan and heat on medium high heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture comes to a solid boil. Remove from heat. Add peanut butter to sugar mixture and stir until completely melted. Pour mixture over cereal and stir together until all the cereal is coated with peanut butter mixture. Pour all the cereal mixture into a well-buttered baking dish and press it in with buttered hands. Mixture should be cool enough to touch. Melt chocolate in the microwave at 50% power until completely melted. Pour onto the cereal bars and allow to set up at room temperature. If making without chocolate, cereal bars are ready w...

This cake was made in honor of my surrogate mother, Bonnie Jean, and her sister, Julie, who have been my biggest supporters from the first day I wrote my first blog post. So grateful for them. And I decided they needed to be honored on Mother's day. I made a recipe of red velvet cake and filled and frosted it with vegan American buttercream.  Then I mixed up a whole bunch of pastel colors of fondant: green, blue, yellow, purple, pink and orange.  I covered the cake with pastel green fondant.  I rolled out all the other colors and used small flower cutters to cut out a whole bunch of different flowers out of every color. The kids helped me with this step.  I scattered the flowers all over the cake.  Pastel flower fun!  Then I took a ball of gum paste.  And modeled it into a simple bird shape.  I used a flat tool to add some wings and feather texture in the bird.  I pressed in some eyes with a small ball tool. I ...

This is the beginning of a new series on bread baking. Germany is famous for its bread. There are over 2000 kinds of bread in Germany. So, we are going to go through some of them. However, because of COVID-19, many people are having trouble finding certain ingredients, including yeast. So, we're concentrating on baking powder bread this week. Baking Powder Bread: 4 cups (500g) flour (any kind of flour will work) 2 cups (450mL) milk or milk alternative 1 tsp salt 1 tbsp baking powder  Then, put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix them together.  Dough should be slightly lumpy.  Pour the dough into a greased bread pan.  Bake at 350°F or 180°C for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown.  Butter the top of the bread immediately upon removing from the oven.  Allow to cool completely before cutting.  The bread is soft and has a neutral flavor. But is very nice-tasting bread.  Enjoy! Watch us make this ...

This birthday cake is for my boss's birthday at work. She didn't want anything specific. She only requested that it not look like a child's cake. I can handle that. I started out with red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting.  I crumb coated the cake.  And while it was chilling, I colored some cream cheese frosting black.  Worked immediately.  Then I got out a small round tip and a medium star piping tip.  And put both of them in piping bags with black buttercream. Then I frosted the cake again. I didn't want to see the cake through the frosting.  I'm also using gold and white sanding sugar.  Ironically, I couldn't find my Happy Birthday press, so I used Best Wishes instead.  You can't see it very well, but I pressed it into the middle of the cake.  And I traced around it with black buttercream.  Then, using the star tip, I piped a shell border along the bottom of the cake, and a few evenly-spaced sw...