American Baker in Germany

This cake was for the daughter of a friend of mine. She's starting school this year and the first day of first grade is a big deal in Germany. New first graders get a cardstock cone decorated and filled with school supplies and treats called a Schultüte. My friend asked me if I wouldn't mind making a Schultüte cake for her daughter's first day of first grade. She wanted lemon cake with lemon buttercream and the color blue for the cone. Otherwise, just decorate it for back to school in general, but please include pencils somewhere. This is what I came up with. First of all, I'd never made lemon cake before. On recommendation, I tried the recipe for Ritz Carlton Lemon Pound Cake and it's super light and fluffy. I can recommend it. To make it a bit more lemony, I added some extra citric acid which I found in packets at the grocery store. To make the lemon buttercream, I used my recipe for American buttercream and substituted lemon juice for the milk. And for good mea...

This cake was a specific request from my husband. This is what he wanted for his birthday. No buttercream. No fondant. Just Yogurette, strawberry yoghurt cream and chocolate. After looking at a bunch of examples and a handful of recipes, this is what I came up with. I was really lucky to convince my lovely 5-year-old daughter, Sabrina, to help me not only with the cake itself, but also with the video. She really added an element of sweetness and innocence. After looking at the various recipes for the strawberry yoghurt cream, I decided which ingredients I needed, and also consciously decided not to follow any of them to the letter. They were all similar enough that I didn't feel like I had to. Plus, I wasn't sure if any of them would make enough. So, let's talk about the ingredients I used. First of all, and probably most important, the Yogurette bars. I bought 4 packages of 10 for the cake and it was just barely enough. I mean, if someone had snitched one, I would h...

This was a cake I made for a baby shower for a friend of mine. We found out she was having a boy, so blue was the main theme. And she had been craving fruit through the pregnancy. Her favorite fruits? Raspberries and cherries. I also happened to know this expectant mother doesn't care for fondant. So I decided not to cover the cake with fondant. But I could make some fondant decorations. I decided to make vanilla cake in my 10-inch square pans and fill my sphere pan about halfway full with batter and leveled them all. To make them taste like cherries, I made cherry syrup by boiling about 1/4 cup of cherry jam with 1/2 cup of water and painting it onto the cake with a brush.  Then I made a batch of Swiss meringue buttercream and flavored it with cherry jam again. It turns out the flavor really didn't come through at all. So I added about a teaspoon of strawberry flavoring to it and it just had a light, fruity aftertaste, but didn't taste strongly of any one fruit. The...