Baumkuchen (Tree cake)

Baumkuchen (Tree cake)

“Baum” is a German word for Tree and “kuchen” represents cake in English. As the name suggests the cake when baked to perfection and cut,  should depict the bark of the tree with “rings” or “layers” to it.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

Refined flour – ½ cup

Sugar – ½ cup

Melted and slightly browned butter – ½ cup

Eggs – 2 no.

Baking powder – ¼ tsp

Rum essence – ¼ tsp

Vanilla essence – 1/2 tsp

Milk – 2-3 tbsps.

For chocolate topping:

Cooking 70% dark Chocolate – 200 gms

Heavy cream – ½ cup

Gelatin – 1 tbsp.

Vanilla essence – ½ tsp

Rum essence – ¼ tsp

Hot Water – 3 tbsps.

Sugar – 1 tbsp.

Recipe:

Cake:

1.       Sieve the refined flour and baking powder together.

2.       In a bowl add 2 eggs, sugar, vanilla and rum essence. 

3.       Thoroughly beat this mixture with an egg whisk.

4.       Heat some water in a container. Place the egg mixture bowl on top of it (double boiler).The water in the bowl which is heating below should not touch the bowl which is placed over it and which contains the egg mixture. As this will result in scrambled egg, which we do not need.

5.       Beat this egg mixture on double boiler for 3 minutes then remove it from the double boiler.

6.       Add melted, slightly browned butter to this mixture. Make sure the butter is at room temperature, as hot butter, it will cook the eggs and we do not want that to happen! 

7.       Once everything is mixed well, add refined flour and baking powder together to it. Mix it with hand mixer.

8.       The consistency of this batter should be like that of a pancake batter. If the batter is too think add 2-3 tbsps.’ of milk to it.

9.       Preheat the oven at 200 degree Celsius for 10 minutes. Take a thick bottom cake pan. Grease it well with butter and some refined flour.

10.   Pour a 1 to 2 cup of batter in this cake pan. Spread it well. It should be evenly layered in this pan.

11.   Put this pan in the oven and let it cook for 5 minutes.

12.   After 5 mins, the cake should be slightly browned from top. Remove the pan and again pour half cup of batter on top of it. Spread it evenly over the baked cake. Gently tap the baking pan to remove air bubbles. Put it back into the oven for 5 minute of baking at the same temperature. Remove it and again pour 1 to 2 cup of batter over the second baked layer.

13.   Repeat the same process till you finish your all batter.

14.   Once the final layer of batter is baked for 5 mins, remove the cake and let it cool down on cooling rack for an hour.

15.   Meanwhile we can prepare the chocolate topping for this cake.

Chocolate topping:

1.  Heat ½ cup of cream in a sauce pan. Add chopped chocolate in it. Add sugar, vanilla and rum

essence in it.

2. Take ½ cup of water and mix gelatin in it. Make sure all the gelatin is properly dissolved in

     water.

3. Pour this gelatin water in to the chocolate mixture and mix well.

4. Once the cake is cooled down, pour this chocolate mixture on top of it. A thick layer of chocolate mixture should evenly spread all over the cake.

5. Refrigerate this cake for 2to 3 hours or until the chocolate is set over the cake.

6.Once the cake is set, remove it from the refrigerator.

7.”Baumkuchen” is ready to serve.