Incoherent Scribblings

Marble Guglhupf
Originally uploaded by blondelibrarian.

It is currently 28 degrees Celsius outside (83 F) and I have no air conditioning. So… what do I decide to do today? Yep, you guessed it! Bake a cake!

Since I wrote my post about the Guglhupf, I have been inundated with requests for my Guglhupf recipe in English and being the accommodating blogger that I am, I decided to go ahead and post my recipe for all those who are interested.

The recipe that I use comes from a book that I borrowed from my MIL called Perlen der Wiener Küche (Pearls of the Viennese Kitchen), copyright 1960 and is, as far as I know, out-of-print.

The first time I made this recipe I made it directly from the book with a little help from A. (Since the book is from Austria, there are a lot of Austrian words in it as opposed to German ones.) and overall it didn’t turn out too bad. The only glitch was that my oven runs hot. Unfortunately I didn’t realize this until after I had baked the cake for the suggested time and ended up burning the edges!

This time, however, I remembered that the oven runs hot, so in addition to translating the recipe from German into English and adding the Imperial equivalents for the metric units, I also remembered to watch my cake a little closer.

Anyway, here is the Guglhupf recipe for your enjoyment. As soon as mine cools off a bit so that I can “frost” it, I will be sure and take a picture. (For best results, use the metric units. The Imperial units are only approximations.)

160 g (½ cup) Butter
120 g (½ cup) Sugar
Pinch of Salt
Ground peel of ¼ Lemon
4 Eggs (divided)
25 g (1 Tablespoon) Baking Powder
40 g (1/3 cup) Raisins soaked in Cognac (optional)
40 g (1/3 cup) ground Almonds
40 g (1/3 cup) Vanilla Sugar OR 40 g (1/3 cup) Sugar + 1 teaspoon Vanilla
280 g (2 cups) Flour (sifted)
1/6 Liter/166 ml (2/3 cup) Milk
Powdered Sugar

Preheat oven to 175 C (350 F). Lightly grease and flour a 20cm (9″) bundt pan.

In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugar, salt, and lemon peel. Stir in the egg yolks until very creamy. Stir in baking powder. Mix in the almonds (and raisins).

In a medium bowl, mix egg whites and vanilla sugar together until stiff peaks form. Stir the egg whites into the butter mixture a spoonful at a time. Stir in flour and milk.

Pour batter into bundt pan. The pan should be about ¾ full. Bake with the oven door open a crack for 15 minutes or until the batter has risen to the top (or very nearly to the top) of the pan. Close the oven door and bake for another 45-50 minutes (mine is usually done in about 30 minutes) or until toothpick comes out clean. After cake cools, dust with powdered sugar.

For a marble guglhupf: Pour half the batter in the bundt pan. Add 1 tablespoon of cocoa to the remaining batter and stir. Pour the cocoa batter into the pan and using a knife, gently stir into the plain batter. Bake as above.

Another Memorial Day has come and gone in the United States and though it is officially a day to remember those who fought in various wars, it is also unofficially the first day of summer. Countless Americans spend the long weekend traveling from one destination to another and, more often than not, attend at least one barbeque.

Barbeque is one of those words in American English that has a variety of meanings. It can refer to the specific style in which meat is prepared and the type of sauce that covers it, it can be a social gathering at which barbequed food is served, or it can indicate the act of cooking meat over hot coals or a revolving spit.

For example, in Texas barbequing refers to what others call “hot smoking:” Sliced brisket, sausage, and pork ribs are cooked with both smoke and low heat for hours over woods such as oak, mesquite, or pecan. And in Mississippi, most barbecue is pork shoulder and is slow-cooked in a smoker (either a drum, or a converted shed), though special events call for open-pit barbecue. *

Barbeque in Iowa tends to resemble the Missouri and/or Kansas City styles of barbeque, but can also simply mean a social gathering where actual barbequed meat may or may not be served and is probably more accurately called “grilling” instead of “barbequing.”

Iowa barbeques revolve around beef and when a bacon-wrapped filet is seared for a few minutes on the grill and served a perfect medium rare, it would almost be considered sacrilege to add any type of sauce… BBQ or otherwise.

Now as we all know, I love good steak and memories of Memorial Day Barbeques past sure had me drooling for a thick filet this past weekend. However, as we also know, beef in Germany has a long way to go before it can even come close to measuring up to my high Midwestern standards.

And then as I was pining away for a thick cut of Iowa beef yesterday, I abruptly remembered a suggestion that my step-dad had when I was back in the U.S. a few months ago: Perhaps I could order some quality Midwestern beef from Omaha Steaks. If so, even in Germany I would never have a beef emergency again.

I got all wound up and started browsing their website before I realized even if they did ship all the way to Germany it wouldn’t do me much good anyway… because I can’t properly grill a steak to save my life!

* - BBQ Information via Wikipeida

When I was home, Mom kept telling me that I should make a list of (non-perishable) foodstuffs that I couldn’t get here in Germany so that I could make myself a “care package” to bring back with me. When she made that suggestion I was highly amused because I had planned all along to make sure I brought some contraband back to Germany with me in the from of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and Skippy Peanut Butter. (I managed the Reese’s and the Mac and Cheese, but not the peanut butter.)

Of course when I was in the grocery store at home the sheer amount of things that I couldn’t get in Germany was overwhelming: So overwhelming in fact, that I ended up gorging myself on lots stuff that I don’t really even like all that much. (Remember the Cheetos?) Of course, I also bought quite a few items that I had been pining away for, but I ate them long before I could even consider turning them into a care package.

However, now that I have been back to Germany for a while, I have had a chance to really think about what the contents my perfect “care package” would be. And as a result, I have decided to post the contents here in case any of my friends or family in the US would like to one day surprise me with any or all items as a gesture of their love and friendship.

So without further ado, Renée’s perfect care-package from the US would contain:

Top Three Items:

1.) Kraft Macaroni and Cheese

Though any variety is acceptable, it MUST be Kraft and I am particularly fond of “White Cheddar” and “Spirals.”

2.) Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

Don’t be fooled if they tell you that I can find them here. They can be found occasionally but are usually months if not years old! And believe you me, nothing is worse than a stale peanut butter cup!

3.) Skippy Honey-Roasted Nut Chunky Peanut Butter

I think the specificity speaks for itself.

Other Desirables:

Jell-O Instant Pudding

The problem with pudding in Germany is that they have only a limited flavor selection and I haven’t found any instant. My two favorite Jell-O Instant pudding flavors are Pistachio and Coconut Cream.

Stove Top (Chicken Flavor)

I have learned to make a mean stuffing from scratch, but nothing beats good old-fashioned Stove Top!

Prego Spaghetti Sauce Flavored with Meat

This is probably a long-shot due to the fact that glass jars are probably a little risky to send via airmail, but I still think it is worth mentioning.

Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing

Pre-made in the bottle only please: Finding proper mayo to make it from the package presents only another problem.

Club or Town House Crackers

The things they call crackers here are nothing but a sad joke.

Fruity Pebbles

The breakfast of champions!

Strawberry Quick

Granted they have Strawberry Yogurt flavored Quick here, but it just isn’t the same.

Pure Cane Brown Sugar

Brown sugar is made from sugar beets here and just doesn’t pack properly.

Quaker Fruit and Cream Instant Oatmeal

No “Banana’s and Cream” though!

There you have it… I will now be eagerly awaiting the postman every day for the next few months, so please don’t disappoint me!

I suppose that if you haven’t actually read one of the amazing animal stories where the dog thwarts the burglar or the cat wakes up the family just in time to save the baby from a raging fire you have heard about them.

While I usually take note of the amazing dog stories, when it comes to incredible cat stories I just eat them up. I love the stories of the cats who miraculously survive riding for 500 miles on the engine block of a car and the tales of the cats who wander for hundreds of miles and many years only to return “home” after the family moves away.

It has often been said that animals possess some sort of instinctual knowledge concerning danger and I never doubted it, but what never ceases to amaze me are the accounts of cats who somehow warn their family of threatening situations such as natural disasters or fires.

Now natural disasters are not necessarily common in my household, but domestic disasters on the other hand are… especially in the kitchen. Tonight being a case in point.

It started out simply enough when I decided to make stroganoff and steamed broccoli for dinner. Usually when I cook I am pretty good at finishing everything at roughly the same time, but since I have only made this recipe one other time my timing wasn’t as precise as usual and as a result, the broccoli and the noodles for the stroganoff were both done at exactly the same moment.

Normally this wouldn’t have been a problem, but both needed strained before they got mushy. (I hate mushy food!) I managed to get them strained before they turned to mush, but in my haste I replaced the pans on the stove after I emptied them.

I sat down to eat, and as usual, A. and I were eating our meal in the company of the cats: Mouse was begging for food and soon after we sat down, Scooter wandered into the kitchen. However, instead of sitting beside the table, Scooter sat in front of the stove and within seconds began meowing loudly. When I turned my head to see what he was crying about, the light on the stove caught my attention. Not only had I left the stove on, two of the burners were still on high and an empty pot was sitting on one of them!

I got up and removed the pot, grateful to see that except for an abnormally red patch on the burner where the pot had been no damage had been done. However, I quickly realized that a domestic disaster had narrowly been averted thanks to my own personal smoke detector (aka Scooter).

Even though we have slowed down considerably since moving here, from a European perspective it seems that A. and I still eat our meals far too quickly. We have lovely conversations while waiting for our meal and oftentimes afterwards we chat for a while longer, but when the food is there, all dialogue stops as we focus on the food.

Some might say that we don’t know how to enjoy a meal and blame our dining habits on American fast food culture. There is probably a grain of truth there, but I prefer to explain myself by saying that the reason I eat so rapidly is because I don’t want my food to get cold. However, this past week we were reminded of how fast we apparently still eat when we treated ourselves to our favorite restaurant in town twice.

The first time we went was on Christmas Eve. This particular place doesn’t open for dinner until 5:30 pm and even when it is busy it doesn’t fill up until well past 7:00 pm, so we don’t normally make a reservation. Instead when we go there we just eat an early dinner.

Nevertheless, since it was one of the few restaurants that we knew to be open, we made a reservation for 6:00 pm on Christmas Eve. We made the reservation not because we were worried about getting a table, but because we were afraid that if the restaurant was empty they might be tempted to close. As a result, when we got there we were mildly stunned to see that instead of dead quiet, it was almost full.

We were even more surprised when the waiter showed us to a table with a list of three reservations on it, one for 6:00, one for 8:00, and one for 10:00, and asked us if we had a problem with being finished by 8:00. Ultimately, since even when we take our time A. and I seldom linger for more than two hours at a restaurant, it wasn’t a problem for us. However, a few minutes after we arrived a couple sat down next to us and I couldn’t help overhear how they reacted with amazement that they were expected to finish their meal by 8:00.

Even though the restaurant was quite busy and we knew we were under a time constraint, A. and I leisurely enjoyed our Christmas Eve meal and still managed to finish up no later than 7:45.

A few days later, after we spent the afternoon at the movie theatre we decided to drop by our restaurant again and have dinner. Neither one of us had had anything at the movie and by the time it was over we were famished. The restaurant had returned to its normal level of business for midweek and as usual we received excellent service.

However, as I mentioned, we were starving and as a result when we devoured our meal in just under an hour, our waiter seemed very concerned that the reason we were finished so quickly was because we were unhappy with our meal. Even though we assured him the food was excellent as always and that we were just hungry, he encouraged us to stay a little longer by offering us a little dessert on the house.

Small Aside: Since at this point many of you who are familiar with “service” in Germany are probably skeptical that someone might actually be concerned with the customer here, let me mention right now that our favorite restaurant in Munich is not a German one, rather an Indian one.

Once upon a time I was considered the fastest eater in my family and maybe I still eat fast for a European: However, I am pleasantly surprised at how much slower I eat my meals since moving to Germany and how it has changed my diet. Nevertheless, something tells me that when I go back to America in a couple of weeks that I will drive everyone crazy while they wait for me to finish my meal!