Kuchen und Torten, I

Last night was the first night of the second session of the baking class...we moved on from "breads" to "Kuchen und Torten"...cakes and pastries and tortes.
In our overly-ambitious program for last night we made about five or six different items... We made a yeast dough which was used for the "Streuselschnecken" (small round pastries), and for Gugelhupf, and then we made Biskuitteig (sponge cake) which is used for the cake rolls and for layered cakes. We had to already start making some cake for next week, when we make layers.

Gugelhupf (the lower picture above) is a very traditional kind of German cake. We call a similar cake pan in the US "Bundt" which is a stepchild of the German cake. Traditionally Gugelhupf has a soft yeast dough, raisins which have been soaked in rum, and almonds.

In the top picture you can see the Streuselschnecken, which is a round yeast dough, sprinkled with "Streusel"...we made three kinds: once with chocolate streusel, once regular, and once with a brittle topping of almonds cooked with honey, butter and sugar. They are filled with Creme, which is a butter cream we made ourselves...intense process but sooo lecker!