A Blustery-Sunday-in-May Cake

Last Sunday I found it hard to believe it was late May: 7°Celsius (45°F), Dull, Rainy and Windy (yes, with capital letters!). Luckily I had cut some of my early peony flowers a couple of days earlier before they got spoilt.

The perfect activity for such a day, as I’m sure you’ll agree, is to go into the kitchen, tie on a pinny, turn on the oven, and bake a cake!

MARBLE CAKE

After looking through several marble cake recipes, mostly German (Marmorkuchen), I decided to just try out my own. And it worked first time! This is a German classic and was requested a while back by my Man of Many Talents… Really tasty and soft, just the right proportion of chocolate, and nice and moist from adding yoghurt to the batter.

• 175g (1 and 1/2 sticks) soft butter
• 175g (3/4 cup) caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 250g (2 cups) SR flour
• 2 tbsps cocoa powder
• 150g (2/3 cup) plain yoghurt

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease and flour either a 1lb/500g loaf tin and 2 mini Gugelhupf moulds, or a slightly larger loaf tin.

Beat the butter with an electric mixer until smooth, then add the sugar and continue mixing until creamy. Slowly beat in the eggs, adding a little of the flour if it curdles, and the vanilla extract. Sift in the flour and gently fold in, and finally stir in the yoghurt very carefully. Now spoon 2/3 of the vanilla batter into your tin(s).  Add the cocoa to the remaining third and mix in well. Spoon the cocoa batter over the top of the vanilla batter. Using a knife, swirl through the mixture 3 or 4 times in a figure of eight motion. I didn’t bother with this for the mini Gugelhupf cakes, but for a round tin or loaf tin the effect is nice.

Bake for 45-50 minutes. (The mini Gugelhupf moulds only needed about 20 minutes.)

After removing from the oven, wait 5 minutes, and then turn out the cakes to cool on a rack.

That warmed me up, and the house smelt warm and cosy too… hope June has some warmer weather in store!

What do YOU do on a cold and wet weekend when you can’t get out in the garden?

Josefi (Seasonal Celebrations)

This coming Tuesday, March 19th, is St Joseph’s Day; for many in Bavaria this means spring has arrived! Therefore I’m tying this post in to Donna’s “Seasonal Celebrations” meme at Gardens Eye View.

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Unless you live in one of the larger cities in Bavaria, such as Munich or Nuremberg, or even Regensburg, life is still very closely linked to the land, and the passing of seasons. The Catholic Church also plays a large role in rural Bavaria and thus a date that many of the older generation here in Bavaria remember well is Josefi, St Joseph’s Day, on 19^th March. This day, considered to be the end of winter, used to be a holiday in Bavaria (until 1968), and several country proverbs revolve around it….

(I’ve translated them roughly into English here)

Ist’s Joseph klar, gibt’s ein gutes Honigjahr

If St Joseph’s Day is clear, it will be a fruitful year

Wenns erst einmal Josefi ist, so endet auch der Winter gewiss.

Only when Josefi’s passed, is the winter gone at last

The temperature will also often have risen by this date – with rain instead of snow – and, as another saying goes, only the laziest farmers will not be out in the fields!

The first spring flowers wake up around now. First the Liverwort…

Hepatica nobilis (16th March), in the woods nearby

And then the Pasque flowers…

Pulsatilla vulgaris (16th March), on the chalky slopes overlooking our valley

Traditionally the Scillas (Alpine squill/Scilla bifolia) – a protected species – will be flowering in the woods; my German “Oma” used to call them Josefiblümerl (although this name is now often given to Hepaticas as well). They grow wild in Germany, as far north as the Danube and even near the Rhine, and are a pretty sight – although I haven’t seen any for a few years. But I do have the cultivated variety seen commonly in gardens here…

Scilla siberica (woodland squill), growing in my garden

A few markets or the first festivals of the year take place around St Joseph’s Day. Also, since Joseph is the patron saint of carpenters, in some regions in the south of Bavaria a special bread with raisins in it is baked in honour of those working with wood. A special beer may be brewed in some towns for this date, and beer gardens might  open if the weather permits!

Well, it may not be beer garden weather yet, despite a few very warm days in early March, but I’m certain spring has finally arrived once again – and am grateful for every single bloom it brings!

Happy March!

Meteorogically speaking, spring begins today. Our weather reports have thus been summing up, and it’s official: this winter has been the dullest, greyest, gloomiest and cloudiest on record in Germany, with the least sunshine in 62 years! I am therefore extremely happy to see our weather forecast for the next few days is for up to 10 hours of sunshine…

The snow is melting slowly, but to remind me/you of what awaits in the very near future, here’s a photo from last March.

Hope it’s a sunny month for you all!

Candlemas

Candlemas (Lichtmess in German) is a day with many sayings attached to it. In Bavaria the farming year begins, the Christmas decorations come down, and forecasts for the coming season are made….

“If Candlemas Day is clear and bright, winter will have another bite. If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain, winter is gone and will not come again.”

Ist’s an Lichtmess hell und rein,
wird ein langer Winter sein.
Wenn es aber stürmt und schneit,
ist der Frühling nicht mehr weit.

Groundhog Day, famous in Pennsylvania for forecasting the onset of spring, was taken across the Atlantic by German immigrants.

Groundhog Day (Wikimedia Commons)

The original animal was a badger, and the saying was:

Wenn an Lichtmess der Dachs seinen Schatten sieht, geht er noch einmal für sechs Wochen in seinen Bau.  

If the badger sees his shadow on Candlemas Day, he will return to his burrow for another six weeks.

(Apparently this is one of the most reliable weather proverbs!)

I somehow think Phil would not see his shadow here today… our snow melted within 24 hours on Wednesday, and since then we’ve had cloud, strong winds and rain. So hopefully “winter is gone and will not come again”!

What’s the weather like in your part of the world? If the sun is shining, beware – winter may yet return!

Cranberry and Orange Scones

Christmas Eve in Germany: coffee and cookies are served in the afternoon, and later in the evening presents are exchanged and a simple Christmas meal is served. Many people here eat sausages and sauerkraut. Some have fish. Others a cheese fondue. It seems every family has their own tradition. We had a nut roast with vegetables. (Recipe coming soon!)

These tasty scones (not at all German) were part of the afternoon spread… the beauty of them was that they were ready in no time; I had frozen them uncooked a few days earlier, and only had to push them into the oven direct from the freezer. I hadn’t tried this before, but it works a treat!

• 225g (1 3/4 cups) self-raising flour
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 40g (1/3 cup) butter
• 2 tbsps sugar
• about 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• juice and zest of 1 organic orange
• 125ml (1/2 cup) milk

Sieve flour, salt and raising agents into a bowl. Cut butter into small pieces and rub into flour with fingertips until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar. Add orange zest and cranberries and mix well. Then add orange juice and 125ml milk little by little and bring  dough together to form a ball. Do not knead! On a floured surface roll out to about 2-3cm thick and cut out shapes with a round pastry cutter. Makes about 8-10 scones. Place on a lightly floured baking tray and either freeze on the tray and put into freezer bags later, or bake immediately at 180°C for about 10 minutes. To bake from frozen they will need a couple more minutes.

What was your favourite treat over the holidays?