All about cake

One of things I dread most during the holiday season in Britain is visiting someone and being offered a slice of Christmas cake. Often dry or dense fruit cake covered with a layer of shop bought marzipan and some thick fondant icing like concrete. Even the smallest piece sits in your stomach like a lead weight and unlike in Germany you can't refuse it and say you don't really like such cakes but have to smile over every forkful and compliment your hostess. Thankfully there are lighter alternatives which also have the advantage of not needing to be made weeks in advance. If you do have your heart set on a fruit cake though, might I suggest a Dundee cake like the one P.K made? She recommends the recipe from Delia Online here for a lighter kind of cake.

Here are my suggestions for three different cakes to serve at Christmas.

When I saw Nigel Slater's mincemeat cheesecake recipe, my first reaction that it couldn't possibly work. Surely the flavours wouldn't blend well with the cream cheese or it would simply overwhelm everything else. Yet I couldn't resist the urge to test it and to my surprise it's a real winner. The buttery taste of the base with digestive bicuits, the creaminess and then the fruit make it something special and a little more original than just simply bringing out another batch of mince pies. A couple of points though; the recipe calls for 300g of digestive biscuits for the base but I found it didn't need half that amount and even then it came out much thicker than I'd normally like so I'd suggest using about a third. The second point is that you might not want to serve this cake to your, er, German friends. One student told me it was different which is of course a polite way of saying it isn't really your cup of tea while another friend compared the taste of mincemeat to Worchester sauce which is certainly original (although saying that, the other person who tried it really loved it.)

Mincemeat cheesecake (from a recipe by Nigel Slater in the Guardian)

For the base

100g digestive biscuits

65g unsalted butter, melted

For the filling

600g full fat cream cheese

100g brown sugar

4 medium eggs

zest of a small orange

a teaspoon vanilla extract

300g sour cream

1 jar of mincemeat (around 310g, I found that the 200g in the original recipe wasn't enough) or better still, make your own. I'll be posting a recipe for homemade mincemeat this week but Delia's is also wonderful

For a 26cm springform tin lined with baking parchment to prevent the base from sticking

1. Melt the butter in saucepan or in the microwave. Place the biscuits in a food processor and pulse a few times until you have fine crumbs (alternatively you can place the biscuits in a strong plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin). Mix the butter with the crumbs and transfer to the springform tin. Pat the crumbs down a little but not too strongly (to avoid having a thick crust). Place the tin in the freezer for 20 minutes to set.

2. Preheat the oven to 140° and begin making the filling. In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and sugar together until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, blending in thoroughly before adding the next one. Mix in the vanilla extract and orange zest, then the sour cream. Finally stir in the mincemeat gently until only just incorporated.

3. Remove the springform from the freezer and place it on a baking tray. Pour in the cheescake mixture and bake for one hour. The middle will probably feel a little wobbly but that's perfectly normal. After one hour, switch off the oven and leave the cheesecake in there with the door closed for another hour.

4. Take it out of the oven, let it stand in the tin until cool then transfer to a plate and leave overnight in the fridge. If you don't do this, your cheesecake will not set properly. Grate a little more orange zest and scatter some biscuit crumbs over the top if you like.

Few things seem to represent Christmas as much as cranberries. Their rich, gleaming colours and sourness so perfect for jam and cakes. I've seen the upside down cake with them in quite a few places, most recently on Barbara's blog but was keen to have a plain cake with them inside which proved more difficult to find. Joy the Baker has a lovely recipe for a cranberry streusel coffee cake which would be perfect for teatime or after a large main course as a lighter dessert. The streusel with brown sugar and oats is irresistable and it's amazingly airy and light.

Cranberry streusel coffee cake from Joy the Baker (recipe here)

My favourite festive cake of all though is this snow topped spice cake from Nigella Lawson. I posted the recipe last year but you can find it again here. This morning I took it into my morning class since this is my last week at work before my holiday and was really pleased how much everyone liked it. It's spicy enough with cinnamon, ginger and cardamom and sweet with lemon icing but manages to be as light as a feather and satisfyingly squidgy in the middle. Best of all, it's incredibly simple. This will be the one I'm making for my family at Christmas.

Snow topped spice cake (slightly adapted from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess)

For the cake

4 large eggs, separated, plus 2 extra large egg whites
125ml vegetable oil
125ml water
2 tbsp runny honey
100g dark muscovado sugar
75g ground almonds
150g plain flour
2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp all-spice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
zest of 1/2 an orange
100g caster sugar

For the icing

juice of 2 lemons

150g icing sugar, sifted

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. Whisk together the yolks and oil, then add the water, honey and dark muscovado sugar. Add the almonds, flour, baking powder, bicarb, spices and zest, folding in gently.

3. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff and then gradually add the pinch of salt.

4. Fold the whites into the cake mixture, and pour into a greased and lined Springform tin. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the cake is springy on top and beginning to shrink away from the sides. Let the cake cool in its tin on a rack for 25 minutes before turning it out.

To make the icing; sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the lemon juice. Stir until smooth. Add more sugar/juice as necessray, depending on how thick or runny you like your icing. Spread on the cake with a palette knife and leave to set. The cake keeps well for a few days and also freezes (uniced) beautifully.

The big baking post

Dear reader,

As we speak, a large pot of homemade mincemeat is cooling on the stove, soon to be laced with brandy and left overnight for the flavours to blend. Commissioned by my boss to bake 2 dozen mince pies, I feel a little nervous, especially since I don't have the proper sized tin, only a muffin mould and cutters which are too small. Since the begiing of December I have made around 200 German Christmas cookies or Plätzchen. Last week I made a mincemeat cheesecake and on Sunday the flat smelled of oranges and freshly baked gingerbread as I prepared a snow topped spice cake and some orangettes. In the small hours of this morning I made Dan Lepard's cranberry chocolate snow cookies as the sky was turning the loveliest pink and orange. They were so good that I ate at least 12 of them, yes really, me who was always so self-righteous about only ever eating one transformed into a quivering wreck who raids the biscuit tin. If there was ever a case for baking overdose, it could well be me and it's not even Christmas yet.

Still, as Mae West once said, too much of a good thing can be wonderful. In the spirit of seasonal excess, I'll be posting a series of recipes, hopefully every day until Sunday, beginning with this post on Christmas cookies. I've never really been a fan of shop biscuits or boxes of chocolates, however expensive they may be. There are always the caramels, liqueurs and coconut ones which I hate left at the bottom and it always seems too much. Yet a little bag of homemade goodies makes a lovely gift, much nicer than a boring voucher or another CD and I guarantee that your friends will really appreciate the time and effort you've put in for them. I made all the Plätzchen below over about four days but you might not have the time or energy for that which I quite understand. The Spekulatius are by far the simplest and quickest, followed by the cranberry and chocolate snow cookies then the vanilla crescents, Linzer Augen and mini Stollen. The Lebkuchen and cinnamon stars are the fiddliest and most time consuming, although also the most popular. Whichever you choose, I'm sure they'll be most appreciated.

Vanilla crescents (recipe from Mingou I posted here)

Keep in a metal tin for 4-6 weeks in a cool place

Linzer Augen (recipe from Mingou I posted here)

Keep in a metal tin for 4-6 weeks in a cool place

Spekulatius

I bought my patterned form from Karstadt but any large department store in Germany should stock nice ones. If you can't find it, just use ordinary cutters in the shape of your choice.

Makes around 80

500g flour

250g butter

250g natural cane sugar

a pinch of salt

2 eggs

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 200° or 175° fan assisted. Place all ingredients in a large bowl and mix until you have a smooth dough.

2. Roll the dough out to around 5 mm thick and cut out shapes or if using a form press the dough onto the pattern evenly with a rolling pin or your hands. Place on a baking sheet covered with parchment.

3. Bake for around 10 minutes then remove carefully and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Keep in an airtight container for 4-6 weeks

Zimtsterne (cinammon stars). Recipe from the December issue of Meine Familie und ich.

I chose a different recipe from previous years in order to avoid serving raw egg white so I could give it to kids and older people. It's basically pretty similar but this time the icing is applied before baking.

Makes around 60

4 egg whites from medium sized eggs

a pinch of salt

350g icing sugar

500g ground almonds

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 tablespoon zest from an unwaxed lemon

icing sugar for rolling out

1. Beat the egg whites with the salt until stiff then fold in the icing sugar. Beat at maximum speed on your hand mixer for another 10 minutes. Put 5 tablespoons of egg whites to one side.

2. Mix the almonds with the cinnamon and lemon zest. With a large whisk, gently blend in the egg whites and leave to cool for 30 minutes.

3. Divide the dough into small portions and roll each one out between two sheets of plastic in order to avoid having a super sticky dough that remains glued to the worktop (I'm talking from experience). It should be around 5mm thick. Using a star shaped cutter, regularly dipped in icing sugar, cut out the cookies and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment, gathering up the remaining bits and rolling out again until you have no dough left over. Brush the reserved egg white mixture over the stars and leave to dry for an hour.

4. Preheat the oven to 150°C (fan assisted 130°C). Bake the stars for 12-14 minutes and transfer to a rack to cool. They should be slightly golden and chewy inside.

Keep in a metal tin for 2-3 weeks

Elisen-Lebkuchen (Recipe from the December issue of Meine Familie und ich)

Elisen-Lebkuchen are a little different from the normal Lebkuchen because there is no flour but a mix of nuts and spices instead. The cookies are pretty easy to make but decorating them takes a long time. However, all my friends loved them the best so maybe it's worth making the effort.

Makes around 60

4 medium sized eggs

1 teaspoon lemon juice

150g icing sugar

2 teaspoons Lebkuchengewürz or mixed spice if you don't live in Germany

200g ground almonds

200g ground hazelnuts

a pinch of salt

1 tablespoon zest from an unwaxed lemon

60 Backoblaten or wafers, 0.5cm (see here for more info or you can skip them if there aren't any in your supermarket)

250g bittersweet or dark chocolate, depending on your preference

chopped almonds for decorating

1. Preheat the oven to 160° or 140° for fan assisted ones. In a large bowl beat together the eggs, lemon juice and icing sugar vigourously by hand or with a mixer for around 10 minues or until thick and creamy. Add the Lebkuchengewürz, ground almonds, hazelnuts, salt and lemon zest and blend with a metal spoon.

2. Distribute the wafers on a baking sheet covered with parchment and place one heaped teaspoon of mixture on each Oblaten. Bake for around 15 minutes. Remove and leave to cool.

3. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or the microwave, stopping to stir every 30 seconds if you're using the latter. I found that melting all the chocolate at once wasn't such a good idea because it started to set before I'd finished decorating so do smaller amounts one after the other if possible.

4. Brush each Lebkuchen with melted chocolate and scatter some chopped almonds on top.

Keep in a metal tin for 4-6 weeks. Place a slice of apple inside that you change regularly and don't close the tin completely so the cookies stay soft.

Chocolate cranberry snow cookies from a recipe by Dan Lepard in the Guardian here. So easy and delicious!

Mini Stollen ((Recipe from the December issue of Meine Familie und ich)

Makes around 80

For the dough

250g flour, plus more for rolling out and the worktop

1 pack of dried yeast or half a cube of fresh

1 tablespoon milk, slightly warmed

70g sugar

125g low fat quark/curd cheese/fromage blanc

a pinch of salt

one medium egg

80 raisins

50g candied orange peel

50g candied lemon peel

a little lemon juice

Extra

100g of butter for brushing on top

100g icing sugar for decorating

1. Sift the flour into a large bowl and form a well in the centre. In another bowl mix or crumble the yeast with the warm milk and 1/2 teaspoon sugar and pour into the well. Mix with some of the surrounding flour. Leave for 30 minutes.

2. When the time's up, add in the quark, salt, egg, remaining sugar, raisins, candied orange and lemon peel and the lemon juice and knead until blended. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

3. Roll out the dough on a floured worktop until 2.5cm thick. Cut into rectangles 10cm wide and 20 cm long. With the edge of your hand make an indentation in the middle then fold both sides (lengthways not widthways) over one another so that you have a long Stollen shape.

4. Place on a baking sheep covered with parchment and leave for another 30 minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 180° or 160° fan assisted. Bake the stollen on the middle shelf for 15-20 minutes.

6. Melt the butter and brush generously over the top of the stollen while it's still warm. The more butter you use, the longer it will keep and the better it will taste. Dredge a thick layer of icing sugar as a finishing touch and cut into 1cm thick slices.

Keep in a metal tin for 1-2 weeks

The finished cookies, ready for giving out. Tomorrow I'll be back to talk about cake and give you an update on my mince pies. Wish me luck!

The sky this morning