Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Bienenstich
A future customer of the Cracked Cauldron asked if we could bake a Bienestich for her to give as a birthday gift.
A Bienenstich is a very simple German coffee cake. It's a dense, slightly dry yellow cake topped with glazed almonds, and filled with Bavarian Creme.
It's a simple cake, really.
So, I made her one.
Instead of whole milk, I substituted almond milk to increase the almond flavor. I used my stash of vanilla sugar (sugar in which several vanilla beans are stored - it imparts a delicate vanilla flavor to the sugar and after a month or two, the vanilla beans are still usable for other dishes. It's 2 uses out of some expensive beans, which warms my frugal soul), and augmented it with some late season purple loosestrife honey. And I simmered the almond glaze with a cinnamon stick so it would take up a bit of the flavor without getting the speckles.
The cake came out very nicely. I was pleased with the color, texture, aroma, and flavor of the cake.
I baked 2 so I could sample and test market it with others.
Our Guinea Pigs mostly liked hte cake - but several said they felt it was better with hot cocoa than with hot coffee, and only one liked it with Earl Grey Tea - the rest preferred a tea like Prince of Wales or Typhoo.
No one liked it with orange juice.
No pictures because I forgot to recharge the camera batteries and both cakes were gone by the time hte batteries were ready.
