North of the Wall: German Black Forest Cake

A view over the hills of the eastern edge of Germany's Black Forest facing France

What's been keeping House Cook from having much chance to cook these days? Distance and many, many changes.

This has been a season of change for us all. Anna-Lara has found a job and has been getting used to a new rhythm of life, Katy-Lynn is preparing for college, Julianne is jumping into her exciting new world of high school, and the youngest of us has been working as her soon-to-be rockstar self, practicing piano and winning science fairs. Meanwhile, I, Sarah-Lambert, have moved to Germany.

Today is the first in our new series, "North of the Wall," featuring foods and drinks and adventures from Germany where winter is most definitely coming.

Feast your eyes on some delicious, traditional Black Forest cake:

Yeah... tasty looking, right? It certainly is.

When I first started looking for the recipe, I could find only German ones. Not too much of a problem since translating a recipe isn't the most difficult, but thankfully, I found one written up in English that is only a tiny bit different from the one in German (you can find the English one I used as reference here). The recipe we're sharing with you today from North of the Wall is a mix of these two recipes.

German Black Forest Cake

Moderate difficulty. Prep time 40-60 minutes (I took 60, but you're probably faster). Cook time 40 minutes.

Ingredients: 

Cake:

1 2/3 cups   flour
2/3   cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp   baking soda
1 tsp   salt
1/2 c   shortening
1 1/2   cups sugar
2   eggs
1 tsp   vanilla extract
1 cup   buttermilk
2/3 cup   kirsch (cherry schnapps)

Filling: 

1 stick of butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 tsp strong coffee or espresso brewed and cooled
1 (14 oz) can of dark sweet pitted cherries in heavy syrup

Whipped frosting:

2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp kirsch
1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
grated semi-sweet chocolate for garnish
extra dark cherries for decoration


Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Step 2: Line the bottoms of two 8 inch round pans with parchment paper (or tin foil) circles.

Step 3: Sift together flour, baking soda, cocoa, and salt and set mixture aside.

Step 4: Cream shortening and sugar until nice and fluffy. Then beat in eggs and vanilla.

Step 5: Slowly, add the flour mixture into the shortening mixture alternating with your buttermilk until they are thoroughly combined. **If the mixture seems too dry add a tiny bit more buttermilk**

Step 6: Pour the mixture into your pans and bake for 35-40 minutes.

Step 7: When the cake halves are both baked, allow them to cool thoroughly. Once cooled, poke holes all over them using a toothpick or fork and sprinkle the kirsch (cherry schnapps) over them generously. How much you use is up to how strongly you'd like the cake to taste of schnapps. Remember: the alcohol will not be baked off, so don't get crazy with it if you're making this sugar treat for your kids!

Step 8: Cream the butter until light and fluffy.

Step 9: Add the powdered sugar, pinch of salt, and coffee and mix thoroughly.

Step 10: Remove the cake halves from their pans. Place the first half on a plate and spread the mixture from steps 8 and 9 over the surface of the layer. Top this with the pitted cherries and their syrup. **I only ended up using 3/4 of the can. Use as little or as much of the cherry/syrup business as you think looks good**

Step 10: In a separate bowl, whip the cream to stiff peaks.

Step 11: Beat in the vanilla, cocoa and kirsch listed under "whipped frosting" in the ingredients.

Step 12: Frost top and sides of cake and decorate with a dusting of chocolate shavings and a lining of cherries. Want more chocolate? Get crazy with your shavings and apply them liberally!

Keep the cake refrigerated until serving.

Dragon's Sweet Teeth: Blueberry Lemonade Popsicles

This Friday isn't a drink (sorry to say, because I'm thirsty). Today, the Hand of the Kitchen brings you a variation on last week's blueberry lemonade: blueberry lemonade popsicles!

Our hand of the kitchen loves to freeze juices into popsicles during the summer and the lemonade last week was no exception. To make the popsicles extra tasty, though, we've mixed a special batch of lemonade with a little less water so the flavor is nice and juicy.

Fresh Blueberry Lemonade Popsicles

Ingredients

3/4 c hot water

3/4 c sugar

1 c fresh lemon juice

1 c fresh blueberries

2 c cold water 

1 popsicle tray

Step 1: Puree together your hot water, sugar, lemon juice, and blueberries until everything is thoroughly mixed. 

Step 2: Pour your mixture into a pitcher through a fine mesh strainer 

Step 3: Stir in your cold water and pour your juice mixture into popsicle trays, add sticks, and freeze. 

These popsicles are so delicious! 

A Treat for Queens: Crepes

Strawberry and Banana Crepes for the Highborn in Us All

Here at Cook's Landing we appreciate a treat for breakfast. And on those days when we want to feel as highborn as the queen herself, we like to make crepes. We fill ours with fresh strawberries and bananas and drizzle melted milk chocolate over the top. Sometimes, when we're feeling extra decadent, we even add a little whip cream to the top.

So today we'd like to share with you our crepes. They're easy and delicious. Trust us. We won't steer you wrong. Especially when it comes to crepes. 

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Makes 8 crepes

Ingredients:

1 c flour

2 eggs

1/2 c milk

1/2 c water

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp melted butter

Step 1: Whisk together flour and eggs. Slowly add in milk and water. Thoroughly beat in melted butter and salt.

Step 2: Heat a lightly greased frying pan on medium high heat. Pour batter into the frying pan. Use about 1/4 cup of batter per crepe. To evenly spread the batter, tilt the pan in a circular motion so that the batter spreads. Do this immediately, before the batter has time to heat. Cook each crepe for about 2 minutes. Flip when the bottom starts to brown - you'll be able to tell if it's browning by watching the edges. To flip, slide a spatula under the crepe and loosen the entire thing before quickly flipping it over.

We chose to fill our crepes with fresh cut bananas and strawberries. Then we took melted milk chocolate and drizzled it over the crepes. To get a perfect drizzle, put the chocolate in a plastic bag and cut off a very small piece of the corner. Then squeeze the chocolate out of the corner of the bag and over the crepes.

Fresh Blueberries for Blueberry Lemonade

Although House Cook is located firmly in suburbia, this area near Atlanta is a bit odd. It grew so fast that in some ways the landscape never had time to catch up. Down the street from House Cook is a tangle of trees that hides a fantastic blueberry patch. Many of our neighbors like to tromp into the woods and pick fresh blueberries, and a few days ago we joined them.

Grabbing tupperware and boots, we trooped out into the undergrowth to hunt for delicious, ripe berries.

It was fantastic! Many of the bushes still had berries that weren't yet ripe, but we found plenty that were.

Looking for something delicious to do with the berries besides just gobble them all up before getting home, we've decided to bring you fresh blueberry lemonade.

 Fresh Blueberry Lemonade Recipe

Ingredients

3/4 c hot water

3/4 c sugar

1 c fresh lemon juice

1 c fresh blueberries

4 c cold water (or sparkling water)

Step 1: Puree together your hot water, sugar, lemon juice, and blueberries until everything is thoroughly mixed. 

Step 2: Pour your mixture into a pitcher through a fine mesh strainer (unless, of course, you like the pulp in which case just dump it all in). 

Step 3: Stir in your cold or sparkling water, serve over ice and enjoy! 

4th of July Special: The Hand of the Kitchen's Ice Cream Recipe

Our Hand of the Kitchen is the second in command whenever we bake, fry, or throw food at each other. Since the unfortunate, temporary demise of our last Hand by White Walker Sugar Cookies, we've had to instate a new force for decision making.

 Naturally, we went with our guts and everyone pointed at the youngest while simultaneously touching their noses not-it.

Today, our Hand brings you her very own recipe for the 4th of July while the rest of us blow up stuff in the name of liberty. Introducing, the proper way to eat your ice cream from the littlest hipster we know.

First, you'll need to make sure you have everything...

Ingredients

blueberries
blackberries
strawberries
vanilla ice cream

homemade whipped cream ingredients:
1 c heavy whipping cream
1 tbsp powdered sugar
1/8 tsp of vanilla extract

Step 1: To make your whipped cream, whip your whipping cream, vanilla extract, and powdered sugar into a frenzy in a bowl until soft peaks form or it's the consistency you like best.

Step 2: Scoop 3 nice, round scoops of vanilla ice cream into a bowl.

Step 3: slice your strawberries and sprinkle strawberry slices, blueberries, and blackberries over your ice cream.


Doesn't that look delicious!

Finally, add a couple of dollops of our homemade whipped cream to the top of your ice cream and start eating!

Here in the Atlanta area we really only have a matter of minutes to eat ice cream out on the front porch while it still counts as "ice cream" and not just "cream." Our Hand tried her best to finish her deliciousness as fast as possible so she could join in festivities.

Happy 4th of July! From House Cook's littlest hipster and Hand of the Kitchen. 

They're Poisoned! Boysenberry Beignets

At the very beginning of Game of Thrones, the Hand of the King was poisoned: Jon Arryn. Unfortunately, there are things hidden in food even in the kitchen. Our Hand of the Kitchen found this out the hard way when she bit into one of our fluffy beignets. They were boysened! 

That's right, boysenberry jam filled beignets. This beignet recipe makes enough to feed the whole kingdom, but watch out. You don't want to lose your Hand of the Kitchen to a boysened beignet.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 envelope or 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

2 eggs

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 cup evaporated milk

7 cups bread flour

1/4 cup shortening

Oil, for deep-frying

3 cups powdered sugar

2 cups boysenberry jam (seedless is easiest)

Step 1: Pour lukewarm water into a large glass bowl. Stir in granulated sugar. Carefully stir in yeast. Let mixture stand for 10 minutes.

Step 2: In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, salt, and evaporated milk. After the yeast mixture has sat 10 minutes, add egg mixture and stir together.

Step 3: In a separate bowl, measure out bread flour. Add 3 cups of flour to the yeast mixture. Stir in. Next stir in shortening and then slowly add the rest of the flour while stirring.

Step 4: Remove dough from bowl and place on a lightly floured surface. Knead dough until smooth.

Step 5: Spray a large glass bowl with nonstick spray and place kneaded dough in bowl. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place for at least 2 hours.

Step 6: Preheat oil in a large pot to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. *If you can't check the temperature of the oil, then use a small piece of dough to check if the oil is hot enough.

Step 7: Roll dough out to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into squares about 1 1/2 inches wide. Deep-fry, flipping the beignets constantly, until brown. It should take about 3-5 minutes per beignet. Make sure not to overcrowd your beignets in the fryer. Remove from fryer and place on a plate covered by at least two paper towels. 

Step 8: To insert the filling -- Using a toothpick or any other small object, puncture a hole into the side of the beignet. Put jam in a piping bag with a round pastry tip. If you have a small round tip, make sure you're using seedless jam as seeds will need a larger tip to fit through. Insert the piping tip into the hole in the side of the beignet and squeeze out some jam. You'll probably have to do a couple of practice beignets to figure out exactly how much jam to push out of the bag.

Step 9: Sift powdered sugar over your beignets and serve.

This recipe makes a lot of beignets, but don't worry. If you don't want to make all of them at once, store the dough in the refrigerator for up to 36 hours. Enjoy!

Toasting the Hand of the Kitchen with a Red Wine Smoothie

Just as every king needs his castle and his Hand of the King to manage his affairs, so the kitchen of House Cook needs a sous chef--or, in our case, Hand of the Kitchen--to do most of the actual baking.

House Cook is, sadly, divided between two estates. One is where most of the sisters live in Georgia, and the other is where the oldest, Sarah-Lambert, lives in Texas. Most of our cooking is done in Georgia by the sisters there, but every Friday we will be introducing a new drink--some alcoholic, some not--from the kitchen of Sarah-Lambert.

Today, we toast the introduction of the Hand of the Kitchen, Katy-Lynn. You'll be able to spot who the Hand is at all times in our pictures because she'll be wearing her Hand of the Kitchen spoon brooch:

And now (drum roll, please)... meet the Hand of the Kitchen:

What should we toast her with, you ask? How about a delicious red wine smoothie! Yuuuuummy! 

This is an absolutely delicious drink. Perfect for the hot weather, but not out of place when the cool seasons return, this red wine smoothie is fabulous. Here's how to make your own: 

1 1/2 c red wine 

1/2 c frozen blueberries

1/2 c frozen raspberries

1/2 c frozen blackberries 

1 c Greek yogurt

1 tsp sugar *

Blend it all together and voilá, you have your smoothie! 

 Perfect with smoked Gouda cheese. I also enjoyed some Muenster cheese with mine. 

*I prefer mine a little more bitter, so 1 tsp of sugar is fine for me, but if you prefer sweeter simply add a tablespoon instead

**If you feel like 3 types of berries is too many then sacrifice the blackberries