The Introduction

Sometime around October 2007, I discovered baumkuchen through Wikipedia's list of cakes. It instantly attracted my attention because of the novelty of baked goods on a rotisserie. Plus, it's theoretically infinitely scalable: with the right equipment one could potentially make a cake as long and as thick as desired.

I finally tasted baumkuchen on January 3, 2008. I got a slice from some Japanese marketplace in Sydney, and hot damn, it was incredible. Surely I would have to get my own baumkuchen oven.

I found a few ovens for sale (links will come in a later post), but most of the manufacturers would not talk to me. The one studio that did give me a price quote listed their cheapest model as ¥680.000 sans shipping. That seemed insane for an Angelino such as myself; the only option was to make my own oven.

Now, I'm not very good at designing simple things. My mind is always in terrible disarray, with half-baked ideas flying every which way. That's the reason why I started this blog: to organise my thoughts and provide direction in a hobby I believe I am pioneering.

Of course, I could be completely wrong about the "pioneering a hobby" bit. I know next to nothing about baumkuchen and the other related rotisserie cakes, nor their place in European and Japanese cultures. Maybe people make the rotisserie versions at home somehow? Perhaps there are millions of people out there who would fall over laughing at my naïveté and ignorance.

Ah well. Here's to a successful baumkuchen oven! Eventually!