Excellent Toaster Oven Baumkuchen from Japan

Before I finish my story of the three cakes, here's a two-part video of a Japanese DIY job featuring an excellent overdramatic musical selection!

THREE CAKES, TWO DAYS, PART TWO: Piqua, Ohio

I rather like the candidness in this photo.

I've mentioned Herr Taesler before. Last July I actually got to meet him! I think we were both equally excited about the encounter, because it meant a rare opportunity to discuss an odd interest in person.

The tour of baumkuchen Mecca began, of course, in the kitchen. Hr. Taesler doesn't use a Ronco Rotisserie, as I first supposed--it's a similar product, but reaches a higher top temperature. Klaus has special modifications for his tapered baumkuchen forms (below, you can see one artfully bound in string, a traditional tying method that helps the first layers adhere). He described the heat from the near-constantly open oven as physically taxing, especially in the summer; fortunately, most of his orders come near Christmastime. There's a lot of finessing and tweaking to make sure the cakes turn out superbly. He gave me a lot of practical advice: The first layers' adhesion is critical. There's nothing worse than seeing a nearly-done cake fall apart in the oven. As soon as you can, wrap the fully-baked cake in plastic wrap so it stays moist while cooling. Try making multiple batters with different flavorings and alternate which one you use on each layer.

Everything about the experience gave a mystical sense of passing on a dying craft.







We continued talking over tea. The Taeslers shared with us some hearty homemade black bread, and showed off an antique Swiss crossbow so big that it took two soldiers to load it. Naturally, we tried some of his baumkuchen here too. The fresh cream and chocolate ganache filling the center were heavenly, and the flavors that ring out in the cake itself were, to me, strong reminders of the vast differences between artisanal hand-made baumkuchen and automated robot baumkuchen. It was a terrific day.

The cakes themselves get a fuller analysis in the next post!

THREE CAKES, TWO DAYS, PART ONE: Chicago

Opportunities for spitcake tourism are few and far between, so three cakes in two days is something special. Maybe a record! Definitely a record for "hardest trip to explain to my roommates."

My last day in Chicago, at the height of summer, was my day to get spitcakes with my copilot (who is also named Sam). I knew that Chi-tonw was home to Lutz Café, up by Horner Park, and Racine in the Polish-Lithuanian southwest side.



The display of Lutz baumkuchen available to-go.



Racine šakotis/raguolis in its protective plastic wrap.

Lutz Café, which offers baumkuchen, is very much a restaurant and tea room. Racine is rather a specialty supermarket which happens to have šakotis (which they call raguolis, equally valid). Both places bake their cakes on-site, though only Lutz has the option of eating it there. Most are packaged up and sold just like a mass-produced confection. This seemed unjust to me, but I didn't have much time to dwell on it. Sam and I splurged on cakes, loaded them into a cooler, and early next morning set off for a little hamlet in Ohio, to meet a man who needs no introduction...

It is abundantly clear that my time management skills are poor

NINE MONTHS AGO, I engaged in a trans-America roadtrip with several stops just for spitcakes. I'm going to split this story into several posts, but they are going to go up THIS WEEKEND.

Spitcake + Fruitcake = Spurftcake

There's an old medieval recipe for trayne roste at Historic Food dot Com! It strikes me as a hybrid spitcake, in that it's prepared a bit like baumkuchen and a bit like chimney cakes. A prepared stripe is wrapped around a spit, like chimney cakes (though here the stripe is made of fruits and nuts, not yeast cake). Then batter is dribbled onto the cake while it turns by a fire, like baumkuchen!

Historic Food claims the trayne roste is a direct ancestor of the gâteau à la broche, which is neat if it's true. Blanched almonds and dried nuts are threaded on a thread as long as a man is tall. That gets coiled around the spit and drizzled with a batter made of flour, wine or ale, ginger, sugar, saffron, cloves, salt, and other spices. AND THAT'S HOW YOU TRAYNE ROSTE.



A trayne roste, nearly done. [source]



Slices showing the cake anatomy. [ibid.]

I am conflicted about posting this recipe

I don't really like the taste of black pepper. That said, Bravo TV posted this recipe, so I'm sharing it with you!
Black Pepper Baumkuchen

• 200 grams butter
• 150 grams sugar
• 2 grams salt
• 2 grams vanilla extract
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon black pepper, ground
• 80 grams yolks
• 210 grams whites
• 150 grams sugar
• 175 grams cornstarch
• 65 grams almond meal

1. Cream 1st four ingredients, beat in yolks.
2. Make meringue, fold in cornstarch.
3. Fold in dry and meringue alternating.

Nice job, chef Morgan Wilson!

I Did Eat Some Gâteaux à la Broche

I'll never outgrow this cakeblog. I will return to it every so often! However, I will find other things to do for years on end.
FIFTY-THREE WEEKS AGO, I ate a gâteau à la broche. Fifty-two weeks ago, I ate a second one, from a different place. And yet I am only getting around to discussing them now! To quote a fellow Mudd alumnus, "I am grossly incompetent."
It was a pretty fantastic weekend, a year ago. I am still a little ashamed to admit that I scheduled twenty hours of bus and train rides so I could spend eighteen hours in a little Pyrenean hamlet. It was around six in the morning when I reached Tarbes, pronounced "tau(gurgle)b". When the daily food market opened, I was there, and ready to get some spitcake!

No better way to start my day!


Cross-section of the cake the patissier was free-sampling off of.

The above pictures show cakes from Le Pic Bigourdan, which as far as I can tell is an enterprise that only sells through these farmers markets. Anyway, look at that cross-section! It belies the irregularity of this type of spitcake. The dribbled batter doesn't make coherent layers. Not in this bakery's cakes, at least...
I bought a small cake from Le Pic Bigourdan and carried on. After some misdirection and a delightful run-in with an Esperantist, I reached the Védère Café in Montgaillard, which I mentioned in my previous gâteau post! Before buying another cake, I tried a slice in their dining-car-turned-café.

Salivating.

I was surprised to see a spitcake sliced into quadrangles rather than rings! Their website shows gâteaux sliced into rings, so I can't tell which is the norm for this region and which is avant-garde presentation. And wow, I thought that other bakery's cakes had irregular layering! This is so unlike baumkuchen! What a wonderful, diverse spitcake universe exists!
I bought a cake from Védère, got smashed on some phenomenal local beers, and miraculously awoke at home in Madrid. Over the next couple of weeks, I tore down those two spitcakes with the help of friends and family.

Spitcakes, pre-teardown.


My cake from Le Pic Bigourdan.

My cake from Le Pic Bigourdan was very hearty, not too sweet, with vanilla and an indistinct liqueur flavoring. I love the appearance of the cross section.

My cake from Biscuiterie Védère.

My cake from Védère was surprisingly moist, considering how thin the cake was. A strong taste of rum and eggs, and a great texture. I wish the cake were thicker, but I don't know how that would alter its good qualities.
* * *
I chose Tarbes and Montgaillard because internet research promised I could try two cakes in one outing. Having actually gone to the area, I discovered I likely could have gotten gâteaux from the town of Pau, or Lourdes, or Lannemezan, or probably any of the towns with markets (read: ALL OF THEM).

Closing this post with a pretty scene!