Cooking up a Storm...

When it gets cold outside I like to cook and bake. Living in a drafty old house it's the only way to survive the cold winter. While Hubby and kids go off to work or school  I must stay home in the cold cave. Once the fire in the wood stove dies I flee to the kitchen and turn on the burners plus stove. Shh. Don't tell them!
So I cooked up a storm yesterday.

1. I baked a butternut squash and transformed it into the most delightful soup for dinner
2. I made a "gedeckter Apfelkuchen". It's the closest thing Germans have compared to an apple pie.

Ingredients for Butternut Squash Soup:

1 big butternut squash
1/2 cup of dried black beans
1 liter of chicken broth
red bell pepper chopped
corn
garlic, minced
chorizo sausages or other hot sausage links
pepper and salt to taste


Cut your Butternut Squash in half. Scoop out the little pocket with the seeds. Put the two cut sides down in a baking pan with about 1/4 inch of water in it. Bake in the stove at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour or until soft when stabbed with a fork.

Take another pot and throw in some black beans with water. Boil for about two hours until soft. Ah, it' s already getting warmer in the house!

Next prepare the dough for the apfelkuchen.

Ingredients for Apfelkuchen: (adapted from Backen macht Freude)

350 g flour
100 g sugar
2 eggs
4 teaspoons of baking powder
milk (recipe called for 4 Tablespoons but I added quite a bit more because the air was very dry)
150 g butter
1 packet of vanilla sugar

2 cups of applesauce, mine was homemade, I added raisins to it.

Throw all the ingredients (except for ONE of the eggs and the apple sauce) in a bowl and kneed them together. Wrap your dough ball in Saran wrap and put in refrigerator. It can rest while squash is baking. Ah, perfect timing. Now you can go and do something else. Maybe chop some wood or shovel the driveway...

Once you get back in the house the squash is ready to go. Who said they were cold? A lovely wave of heat hits me as I enter the kitchen. Beans are getting soft and it's time to deal with the squash. Pull it from the oven and scoop the meat out and reserve.

Time to get back to the cake! Get your dough from the fridge and cut it in half. Take the first half and roll it out flat to fit in a baking pan/sheet that's about 30x40 cm. Hmm, since I don't have anything that size I just took whatever came close... See picture.
Spread your applesauce mix on top of the layer of dough in the pan. Take the second half of the dough and roll it out flat. Same size as the first piece. Now come the tricky part: Moving the second sheet of dough and putting it on top of the applesauce. No different from making an apple pie really. You have to fold it up and then unfold it. Right? It's just a bit bigger...

Hopefully your oven is still nice and hot from baking that squash. Temperature needs to be about 375 Fahrenheit. So great, you can turn it up a bit more. =)
Make an egg wash by mixing one egg yolk and a tablespoon of milk. The German cookbook calls for sliced almonds on top. I didn't have any so just the egg wash will do. Brush it on. Stab the cake a few times with a fork to create some holes for steam to escape. Put it in your oven and bake for 25-30 minutes - until top is golden brown.

Back to the soup. Add chicken broth to your squash chunks and puree. Add the clove of minced garlic. Add the cooked black beans. Throw in some yellow corn if you have it. Add some chopped bell pepper. Add little pieces of your cooked hot sausage links. I don't add them to the pot since my daughter doesn't like spicy food. So you can just have the sausage in a little bowl to the side. Vegetarians can leave it out too.

You'd think there would be easier ways to keep the house warm. But not as delicious. Dinner is ready to go. Time to make some dolls...

Piece of Cake: German Cherry Crumb Cake - Kirsch-Streuselkuchen

Here is a secret: My husband is a 3-time Weld County Pie Champion blue ribbon winner. I am not! I don't do pies. It's not a German thing. In fact, when we first started dating, we always argued about the usage of the word cake and pie. I'd call his pie a cake, and he 'd be very offended. "It's not a cake! This is a P-I-E! A cake is something different," he woud yell in frustration. Problem is we don't have the word pie in German. A baked sweet something is just a Kuchen/ cake.

Year after year the judge ladies at the fair would ask upon turning in the pie: Did he really make that pie?" They could not believe that a guy could make better pies than the old blue haired ladies...

Well I am not a champion pie maker. And I have never won any of the baked goods competitions at the Weld County Fair. It's just too intimidating with a husband like mine...But here is a really great recipe for an amazing German style cake!

You can make it with sour cherries or any other kind of tart fruit ( apples, red currents, any berries really, or apricots)



Ingredients for the batter:

• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 3 eggs
• 125 grams sugar
• vanilla (powder or liquid version)
• 200 grams flour
• 2 tsp. baking powderpinch of salt

for the topping

1.5 cups sour pitted cherries or other sour fruit cut into bitesized pieces



for the crumbs:

• a little over half a stick of COLD unsalted butter
• 75 grams sugar
• 150 grams flour

1.cream the butter with sugar, add the three eggs incorporating one egg at a time mixing it for about a minute, add vanilla flavoring

2. mix flour, baking powder, and salt together.

3. add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients one tablespoon at a time.

4. butter a springform (springform is the kind of pan that's round and the rim pops off after the cake is baked)

5. spread the batter in the springform evenly

6. put the cherries or other fruit on top and spread it evenly


 Make crumbs:
1.cut the cold butter into a small bowl
2.add the flour and sugar to it
3.gently work the flour and sugar with your fingers into the butter

Remember: you are not trying to make dough here! Just a lumpy mixture to spread over your cake!

Bake for about one hour at 375 Fahrenheit in preheated oven. Check with a toothpick for doneness...

This cake is really a piece of cake to make! I have been doing it since I was a young child in Germany. So don't be afraid to try it, and let me know how your's turned out.