Sooo, Monday was my one
month mensiversary. Yes. That's a word. I looked it up.
Anyway, I was just minding
my own business not really thinking about it, when I saw that Alyssa
from
Mom de Cuisine was awarded with a 'Versatile Blogger Award'.
“Good for her!”, I thought. It's a great blog she has there with
almost daily updates from sweet to savory. So she truly deserves it.
As I went through the list
of bloggers she passed the award on to, I noticed something. There
was one name I thought I misread. Could that be... MY name I saw
there? WHOA! Yes? YES! How was that possible? I feel genuinely
honoured, I do. As I said, I have only been a blogger for one month
yet feel very passionate about it and hope to one day find my style
and voice as one and develop my cooking and baking skills.
It's been a great month
and hope for many more to come!
Thank you, Alyssa!
So, coming with this award
are certain rules. I did a search about it and saw that there seem to
be different ones. As I am so new to blogging, I chose the following:
1. Thank the
person who gave you the award.
2. Tell 7 random things about yourself.
3. Pass the award on to 10 bloggers you've
recently discovered and you think are fantastic!
Here we go:
Seven random things about me:
1. The only two Disney films
that I like are the old Alice in Wonderland and Mary Poppins. I just
don't get me to like Disney because I always felt like they ripped
off other films and ideas (most of it was based on books and fairy
tales to begin with, anyway) and many of the old ones had obvious
racist implications. I could do a whole post about this so I'll leave
it to that for now.
2. I hate spiders. Alright,
that's not very creative. Many people hate spiders. It went so far
with me that when I was a child, even the tiniest of those
eight-legged monsters made me freeze and stare at it, fearing it
would disappear once I manage to get the vacuum cleaner. It got
better, though. Last year (pretty much exactly one year ago from
today), there was an incident with a HUGE spider sitting right next
to my pillow the moment I wanted to go to bed. Let's just say it was
the first and last panic attack I've ever had with cold sweat and
everything. After that kind of 'shock therapy', I'm a little more
relaxed but still could not sleep in a room where I KNOW there is
one.
3. I did an internship in
London and fell in love with that city. The people, the mentality,
the variety, the culture, the vibe. It comes so far that when the
desire to get back becomes too strong, I go to that kind of strange
tiny shop in a completely different part of the city I live in just
to buy me a Crunchie for like 1€. You don't get those here. Oh, and
while I'm German, my accent is British when I speak English.
Apparently, I sound like a “posh British schoolboy”, so I've been
told. Go figure....
4. If I was a girl, my name
would be Julia. True story. My mother got the idea of calling me
Tobias because of a football (soccer) match my brother had when he
was 13. One boy who played in THE OTHER team was called Tobias and
his friends where cheering him on yelling “TO-BY! TO-BY!”. She
liked that so much that she gave me that name. Bless her heart.
5. I love animals but decided
for me that I can never have a pet (anymore). I used to have a cat
until she died about 3,5 years ago and it crushed my soul so deeply I
still can hardly look at pictures of her. It's better for my own
sake.
6. My very most favourite
leaf vegetable was arugula... until I developed an allergy from one
day to another. If I eat it now, my whole mouth and throat turn sore
for a couple of days. Not worth it.
7. About two months ago, I
bought a Joan Baez vinyl record. I don't even have a player. I just
saw it when I passed a music store that also sells old vinyls and
felt like it. I like her, yes, but am not obsessing over her or
anything. These facts are supposed to be random and that is one of
the most random things I bought, I guess.
About the bloggers...that
really is a difficult task for me. I mean, I have only been a blogger
for a month and being an active part of the blogging community is
very new to me. Many of the blogs I would consider have already
received the award, some may not really care. Because of those
factors coming together here, I chose to pick 10 blogs I have
recently discovered and think are great as opposed to 15 blogs in
general. The rules vary and I found these to suit me better.
To be honest, I am a bit
overwhelmed and feel like I am not quite up to the task. ;)
So here we go (in no
particular order):
I am going to contact all
of them as soon as possible although I have never spoken to some of
them before. Awkward.
Now, there is still a
recipe to post! I actually meant to post something completely
different today, but because there is always cake when there is
something to celebrate, I decided to bake one right this morning,
especially for this occasion!
Autumn is right around the
corner. That also means that harvest time is here. Do you want to see
a picture of our apple trees? No Tobias, why should we? I knew you
do! So here it is:
 |
| Packed. |
That means that I am going
to post quite few apple recipes in near future because that is
basically what I'll be baking with. Apples Apples Apples. Good thing
I like them.
I am in love with this
cake. It has an old timey sentiment to it and not only because both
my grandmother and mother used to bake it. I leafed through my
grandmother's old folder of recipes she “passed on” to me and
tracked down the original. It was in a promotional calendar by “Dr.
Oetker” from 1954! For the month of March, strangely. Not really a
month I'd associate with apples. Dr. Oetker is a well-established
food processing company which also publishes cookbooks and has many
other things in its portfolio. Their book “Schulkochbuch” had an
impact on German cooking similar to Julia Child's in the US.
Anyway, I changed the
recipe quite a bit to give it a more seasonal touch and because I
simply adore the combination of apples and cinnamon. I prefer this version to the original. However, I leave
it up to you to decide which one you like better.
Hazelnut Apple Sheet Cake
- 1 package vanilla pudding
mix (not instant, the kind you need to cook. Can be substituted with
45g or 1.6 oz. starch flour and 1 ts vanilla essence)
- 4 tbsp milk
- 150g (5.3 oz.) butter
- 150g (5.3 oz.) sugar
- 2 eggs
- A pinch of salt
- 250g (8.8 oz.) all-purpose
flour
- 9g (0.3 oz. or about 1
1/2 ts) baking powder
- 500g (17.6 oz.) apples,
peeled and sliced
My personal changes and
additions:
- I only used 150g
all-purpose flour and substituted 100g (3.5 oz.) with ground
hazelnuts
- 1 1/2 ts of cinnamon for
the batter (because apples and cinnamon are HEAVEN)
- 2 handfuls of slightly
crushed hazelnuts (I did that in a mortar but a freezer bag or even
just cloth and anything heavy works just as well)
- Mixture of about 5 ts of
demerara sugar and 1 ts of cinnamon
- Preheat oven to 160°C (320°F)
- Stir pudding mix with
milk.
- Beat butter until creamy,
add sugar, eggs and salt little by little.
- Mix flour and baking
powder (substitute 100g flour with ground hazelnuts and add cinnamon if you want to
try my version), add to the batter alternately with pudding mix.
- Spread half the batter
into a greased 24cm (about 9'') spring form pan. Lay out half of the
sliced apples.
- Sprinkle with half of the
demerara/cinnamon mix and a handful of slightly crushed hazelnuts
(all optional)
- Spread remaining batter
onto apples, lay out remaining apples. Add rest of demerara and
hazelnuts (optional again).
- Bake on centre rack for
about 55 minutes (my version took about 60 minutes).
Enjoy!
Oh right. This is what the calendar looks like:
Wow, this post took so long to write I
had to push it back a day.
Olive Oil & Orange Cake with Pistachios
