Dear Reader,
I have a deep love for Germany and its baking traditions, so this week I reached for this book on my shelf: Das Grosse Buch vom Backen, which translates to The Big Book of Baking.
This book is especially meaningful to me because it was a gift from one of my viewers. It belonged to her late mother, and I’m still touched that she entrusted me with something so personal and special.
So far, I’ve only tried one other recipe from its pages, which I shared in a video: the apricot cake you’ll find featured in this video came out perfectly and I highly recommend giving it a try sometime.
This time I went with something simpler, since my weekdays are always short on time. I chose a German classic I’d somehow never tried before: marble cake, or Marmorkuchen.
In English, we would call this a bundt cake because it is baked in a pan with a hole in the center. In Germany, it is often baked in a slightly fancier version of a bundt pan called a Kugelhopf pan. Either pan works, so there is no need to buy a new one unless you want to add a touch of decoration to your simple bakes. I have both of the pans below and love them.
Marble cake starts with a simple vanilla batter, with part of it mixed with cocoa powder to create that signature marbled effect. To keep the cake light, some of the flour is replaced with cornstarch. Sometimes it is finished with just a dusting of powdered sugar, but this recipe called for a chocolate icing—and I certainly wasn’t going to argue with that!
I hope this adds a touch of simple elegance to your Kaffee und Kuchen this week.
Until next time, happy baking!
Kristin