Baking Adventures

I was going to write this a few days ago, but as it often happens, it didnt end up getting posted. So now, I'll tell you about the mishap of last week. I was talking about my birthday to S and seeing as his birthday is a few days after mine, about what sort of cake he'd want, and what cake I'm making for my own party. I love a simple sponge cake so, yesterday I attempted to make one seeing as you have to have a test run of those sorts of things. Cakes with such temperamental ingredients such as whipped egg whites need to be tested. I knew I had a recipe at home, and so I quickly checked online to see if any random ingredients are needed. And no, all I could see from Bestrecipes.com.au was that I needed flour, cornflour, eggs  and sugar. Great.   But when I got home, my recipe did call for something random... Wheaten Cornflour. hmmm. Cornflour I have, but wheaten stuff? I sent out an emergency text to S ( as I dont have internet at home and going back to the office wasnt so attractive an idea) to google it and message me back any substitutes. And the amazing man did one better: messaged back the substitutes plus an alternative recipe. It was touted as "never fail" but some how, I managed to stuff it up. While it was overcooked a little ( oops! That would have been preventable), it tasted like I had used 4 Tbsps Baking Soda not the 1/4 tsp it called for. Shame. So back to the drawing board for that one. I have two other recipes that I can try, so I might still give it a go and get my sponge for my birthday.

On another baking note, this past weekend was the 1st Advent. In Australia, we dont celebrate Advent so much. Normally decorations in homes go up around the 1st December. Because of the heat, we're not so much into candles either. But here in Germany, its so lovely to have a cozy atmosphere with candles and the Christmassy decorations. So in the spirit of Christmas baking, I decided to try Zimtstern ( or Cinnamon Stars)- a recipe that I'd seen on another girl's blog, Katie. She's an american girl training to be a pastry chef in Northern Germany. So Zimtstern is obviously something her bakery does. Little did I know that it would be so difficult with what seemed to be a relatively easy recipe. It was only when I double checked with a friend that there was no flour in it (???)  that she said " oh, I'm proud of you for trying to make them! They are one of the hardest things ever!" That made me a bit nervous.

When I came to rolling out the dough and pressing the star cutter, I realized what she meant. These cookies are impossible to roll and cut because they are so sticky. Seriously.  But with a bit of creativity ( and a lot of time) this is what I ended up with...well, ok, one tray was like this, the other were just round blobs. Apparantly the star shaped ones look just like Oma's so that is good. I dont think I'll be making these again any time soon!