American Baker in Germany

 Many of you may not know, that I follow the YouTuber Little Cherry Cake. As part of being on her Cherry Brigade, I also have access to the cake challenges. This time the cake challenge is black and white. And for the first time, I decided to participate. Here's the video with all the challenge entries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Wb5jBgJIY I started out frosting a 6-inch cake dummy with vegan American buttercream.  And I covered it in white fondant. Then I rolled out some black fondant and cut out some small squares. And I placed them around the bottom as evenly as possible. Then I cut out some butterflies and placed them evenly spaced around the side of the cake. And I cut out some black birds and placed them around the top of the cake. And I cut out some tiny flowers. And placed them between the butterflies on the side. And also between the birds on top. I think this cake turned out very elegant. Black and white just gives an impression of cleanliness and elegance. Do...

 This cake was for my daughter's tenth birthday. She specifically asked for certain things. One thing she wanted was red velvet cake. But, she didn't want it to be red. She wanted it blue. So, we colored it blue to make blue velvet cake. I made two 5-inch layers and two 4-inch layers of blue velvet cake. She also specifically asked for French buttercream, but I gently colored it blue. And I carved the cake into a mermaid tail shape. And I frosted it with French buttercream. Then I cooled the cake in the fridge. While the cake was cooling, I took a piece of cardboard and drew a fin on it. I cut out the fin from the cardboard, painted some edible glue on it, and laid it on some pink fondant and cut around it, smoothing the edges. Then I placed a skewer into the cardboard to let me insert it into the cake later. And I got out a rainbow of fondant colors. I rolled them each out, one at a time, and cut out one letter of my daughter, Sabrina's, name and a whole bunch of circles. ...

 The idea of pound cake is from the idea of making a cake with a pound of butter, a pound of sugar and a pound of flour. While simple, keeping the ingredients at exactly this ratio isn't the best tasting. So, listening to cooks who have perfected the recipe over the years, we're making a slightly altered version. Pound cake: 1 1/2 cups (180g) flour 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 cup (250g) butter 1 cup (200g) sugar 4 eggs 1/2 cup (120mL) sour cream or quark 1 tbsp vanilla extract or 3 tbsp vanilla sugar Cream butter.  Add sugar and cream together.  Add eggs one at a time.  Add sour cream, vanilla, salt and baking powder. Slowly add flour.  Bake in a greased bread pan at 350°F or 180°C for 40-60 minutes. Make sure to test with a knife in the middle. It should come out clean if it is done. This cake tastes like vanilla and is a bit heavy, but very delicious. It's perfect for a casual get-together. Watch us make this simple recipe on our YouTube channel here:...

 This cake is for my daughter's Kindergarten farewell celebration. The celebration was themed: circus! So, we're going with it. We decided to make two tiers. So, I baked a 9-inch vanilla cake and a 7-inch chocolate cake. I filled and frosted the cakes with red vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. And my 6-year-old helped me with this one. Then I frosted the cakes again. And covered them with white fondant. And I stacked the cakes on top of each other. Then I cut some red stripes. And placed them roughly evenly spaced around the bottom tier. Then I cut out some blue triangles and placed them between the stripes as well as a row of red stars along the edge of the top tier. And I placed blue swags between the tiers. Finally, I cut out the word Fest and the year, 2023, and placed it on top of the cake. I didn't feel a longer word would comfortably fit. I love how this cake turned out. It perfectly fit the theme of the party. And thank you, Kindergarten, for all the wonderful sup...