My website and business could give the impression that I don’t like US cakes, but I enjoy them just as much as the ones I bake myself. They all have their own appeal and special occasions or traditions of when they are being enjoyed. Some German cakes too, are eaten on special occasions or belong in a specific season or they are part of a special tradition. When I decided to live abroad with my family, I didn’t just leave all those memories and rituals behind. I love living in the US and being a US citizen and by becoming US citizen, I did not just strip off what I liked and who I am. Over the years, I learned to accept that I seem to have a talent in baking delicious German cakes but also learned that my skills are limited when it comes to baking traditional US treats. For instance, my pie crusts come out rock hard every time.

I love sweets and I’m addicted to baking

The steps of making US cakes are different from how I learned to bake, and the process of mixing is just as important to me as the end result is. That is another reason why I rather bake my own recipes. The preparation step that is so important to me because I experience it as very calming and peaceful is mixing butter and sugar together and adding the eggs slowly one by one. I love that process of stirring and watching how the ingredients combine to become a creamy and airy batter. In US recipes it is mostly required to mix up all wet ingredients, all dry ingredients, and toss the two mixtures together, and this deprives me of the preparation step I enjoy watching so much.

“Cobbler, stick to thy last.”

I live my life dedicated to growth and believe that everyone is the architect of their own fortune. In the contrary to that, and when it comes to my baking hobby, I rather be the cobbler who sticks to thy last and whit that, doing what I’m really good at. I don’t need to become great in everything, I’m totally fine with baking the cakes I know and make well.

 “Have you ever thought of selling your cakes?”

I would have never started selling German cakes in the US if not for the many friends and coworkers who constantly tell me to do so. My intention is to enrich the market by adding a new option, and not forcing something on people because I believe that what I bake is better than the sweets here in the US. I started my business to add to the colorful culinary variety which we all can enjoy in the US. I’m convinced that people who already love a pineapple upside down cake or a slice of lemon loaf will not only like what I bake, I know those people will melt in enjoyment when they get a taste of my cakes.

My cake is but one of many.

German cakes are not better, but they are different and a new experience. Eating a German cake hits the same spot as any sweet treat and will make your endorphins gush into your blood stream. My mission is to add bliss to everyone’s life. Of course, this is possible whit cakes available already, but my cakes make a great addition, a new segment. Think of lunch or dinner for a second, you can choose between so many different varieties of delicious, you can go for meat, vegetarian, paleo, keto, and choose between US, Chinese, Mexican and so on. You choose your meal preferences from such a huge variety, and similarly to that I provide an additional choice for dessert. My cakes are an additional flower in the existing bouquet of beauty.

This strawberry cake belongs to a German Spring like tulips and daffodils, thus, I would like to introduce the Obstboden to you.

I wish I would know how to spark that interest in that new option in people. I believe that one of my hurdles is translating names. I have a feeling that potential customers here in Vernon Hills, Mundelein, Libertyville, or Long Grove are not tempted to buy my cakes because they have no idea what taste and texture to expect when reading the names or even seeing a picture of the treats.

Let me introduce one of them

Germans use a sponge-cake layer in a very specific shape for cakes with fresh berries. In my pictures I used strawberries that is the most classic version.

US definition of Sponge Cake: A soft, light cake made with eggs, sugar, and flour but without fat. (Cambridge Dictionary)

This sponge-cake dough is called bisquit in Germany, and this specific layer is called fruit base or bottom (Obstboden). Only its appearance can loosely be compared to a tart, or flan base, or to a cake called Mary Ann cake. The texture and recipes are different. The tart base is dens and not as soft and pillowy, and the Mary-Ann cake recipe, I found online, included milk and baking soda. The German bisquit however contains only flour, potato starch, sugar, and eggs, and it is soft and pillowy and can be combined with whatever you prefer. It can be garnished with fresh berries and fruits of your choice, you can add whipped cream on the side, or cover it with buttercream, add bananas and glaze it with chocolate. Tell me what you top it with!

Erdbeerboden

I cut the strawberries in halves and place them on the cake layer. To extend the optical appeal and freshness I add a glaze layer called Tortenguss. In Germany it is available as a powder you need to mix with water and cook for a minute so it becomes a jell like liquid, that becomes stiff ones it is cooled down. If you don’t have that you can use one cup water, a tbsp. sugar, and a tbsp. starch. If you use smaller berries like blueberries for example you can simply cook the glaze, toss the berries in, and fill this combination onto of the cake. Frozen berries need to be cooked with the glaze for a minute to thaw them, other withe the jell will harden before the fruits are transferred onto the cake and the result will not look very pretty.

The Obstboden was a very famous addition on each coffee table during the 1950’s and still during my childhood in the early 1980’s. That was the time where canned fruits and especially the pineapple was considered fancy in Germany. Fruit canning with local fruits was nothing new and very common but purchasing a pineapple in a can was very special. Therefore, the Obstboden was often a decorative center piece, with Bananas, Pineapple rings, canned peach slices, and those bright red canned cherries.

Layered Cake – Torte

Besides for the Obstboden, the German bisquit is mainly used for layered cakes called Torte. Germans bake usually one bisquit and cut it into two or three layers. Whereas, in the US the layers for a cake are baked one by one and are made of cake batter with butter and baking powder.

The fillings vary, just like they do here in the US, from buttercreams, over custards to heavy whipping cream in different flavors in combination with chocolates, nuts, and fresh or canned fruits.

“Words have meaning and names have power.”

– Author Unknown

Most cakes are named after the ingredient that is providing the flavor, like strawberry cake, the oreo crust, pecan pie, or a Biscoff cake. The same is true for Germany, the cake on the pictures above and below this paragraph display a famous German example. The cake’s name-giving ingredient is a German candy called Foam/chocolate kiss cake.

Chocolate Kiss

My problem with naming the cakes for US American customers is, that some sweets in Germany are not as known in the US, which creates the same issue as when a cake shape does not exist, and I need to find a good translation. This chocolate kiss is made of slowly heated up cane sugar sirup and beaten egg whites, the mass is piped on a wafer and glazed with a very thin dark chocolate. For the cake I need to split the wafers off the candy, the creamy part of it is mixed with Greek yogurt and heavy whipping cream, and the wavers are used for the decoration.

Schaumkuss Torte

Another one of my cakes is called bounty cake in Germany. Named after the Bounty chocolate bar that is filled with a sweet coconut filling but which is not as well known here in the US. In this instance, none of my local neighbors has any idea what to expect from a cake named Bounty cake.

My Bounty cake is a rich chocolate bundt cake with a center of a sweet coconut macaroon batter. How would you call it?

Bounty Cake

Maybe I’m wrong, and the name is not as important as I think, but I feel that when I say that I bake cakes, people see before their inner eye a layered birthday cake with butter cream. Most other US names for different categories of US cakes are too specific as for being used for names of German cakes. Very similar in both countries are cheesecakes and Bundt cakes but pies, loaves, bread, brownies, cupcakes, scones, biscuits, and muffins are too specific. Germans have a huge variety of cakes beyond layered cakes and Bundt cakes too, and there is simply no word in English to distinguish between layered cream-filled cake (=Torte) and pineapple upside down cake (=Kuchen). The problem here is that everything we call Kuchen in Germany, cannot simply be translated into cake and I will have to learn to work around that. Maybe one day my cakes are that established that US Americans know what a Strawberry Boden is. Afterall, Germans haven’t had words for muffins, cupcakes, and pies so they simply kept the English name when the items started to appear in Germany.