Butter Cake

The girls found a new liking in "Butterkuchen", literally Butter Cake, on their visit to Germany. So they went into Heidrun's kitchen and gave it a try.

First they measured and sieved 500g (4 cups) of flour.

They slighly warmed 1/4 liter of milk (1 cup),

mixed it up with 50g of live yeast (It was a block they crumbled up. We'll try 3 packs of dry yeast next time back home.),

and added the first tablespoon of 120g of sugar (1/2 cup).

This "Pre-Yeast-Dough" they whisked up to let the yeast develop.

Then they added 1 egg and 1 egg yolk, the rest of the sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt, the zest of half a lemon, and 150g butter (10 tablespoons, yes, 10, and don't worry, there will be more).

All that was mixed up into a dough.

It was mixed, checked, discussed, and mixed again. We will try our bare hands next time, too.

A little flour. Just to see how nicely it will rise and crack.

Then the dough went into the warm oven for 45 minutes to rise.

When the dough was nice and huge it was spread into a large cake form with their hands. All their hands. It needed Lucy, Lily, Lena, and Heidrun for this one.

Then the dough was dimpled with their thumbs. (Not before Lily got properly dressed though. For the historic note.)

Then they spread 100 g more of cold butter (7 tablespoons) in chunks into all the dimples (There it is. That's like 2 sticks of butter in total for this cake. Good riddance.).

Over all that goodness they spread 50g of sugar (1/4 cup) and 

a couple handfuls of sliced almonds.

All that went into the oven at 175°C for 20-25 minutes (Try 350°F).

There it is. Cut into pieces. Absolutely yummy. Add  hot chocolate and coffee and you got yourself a 4 o'clock meal.

Soft in the inside and crunchy on the outside. Just like any kid. Happy eating!

Pizza Dough

We got the pizza dough ready for the next couple of weeks. Thursday is Pizza Day. This will be enough for four pizzas.

1kg of flour and a tbls of salt in a big bowl.

2 packs of dry yeast, a little olive oil, and 650ml lukewarm water in a small bowl. We beat the yeast water all foamy.

Then Papa kneeded it to a ball before Lily tossed it onto the counter with some extra flour. Then she had some fun:

Then Papa helped out and we kneeded the thing for five minutes:

At the end we put the dough back into the bowl, covered it with a damp dish towl and are now letting it rise for an hour.

Then we'll devide into two balls (two pizzas each) and will freeze it.