Surprise, Surprise
28 October 2008
Last weekend we celebrated Simon’s 30th birthday with a little party at our home. Well, in the end the party was actually not all that little after all, measured by the size of our tiny apartment. It was really nice to see all the friends we've made during our past 8 months in Tokyo. We were quite a diverse and international bunch, including Japanese, Germans, Austrians, Swiss, Americans and British.
Other than at our parties back in Munich, where it was not unusual for the first people to arrive at least 45 minutes late, here in Japan everyone was strikingly punctual. The first guest arrived at 8:00 exactly, and then the doorbell kept ringing at 8:01, 8:02, 8:03,… Luckily we had kind of anticipated something like this, so we were actually on time, too.
The party itself was the idea of both of us, so I really wanted to have a surprise for Simon that evening, and I decided to bake a nice large birthday cake. However, actually keeping it a secret until the party was a bit of a challenge. Trying to conceal the smell of a cake in our flat (as I mentioned, the place is tiny, and we have an open kitchen) would have been useless – so I came up with the cunning plan to bake two cakes, the "real" one for the party, and another small one for the birthday brunch on Saturday morning, so he would think this was the source of the smell. The plan worked out perfectly, but wouldn’t have been necessary after all, as Simon was so jetlagged from his trip to Chicago that he didn’t pay attention to any smell at all. Anyways, this is how he got to enjoy two birthday cakes.
The "camouflage" cake was a spontaneous fusion of random ingredients, including (in addition to the usual ingredients of a cake) mascarpone, white chocolate chips, lots of vanilla, raisins, crushed walnuts and ground sesame. I gave a bit more thought to the "real" cake, based on the Swiss "Rüeblitorte" (carrot cake), to which I added some fresh ginger and which I covered with a yuzu icing. Although I love Rüeblitorte, I had never tried to make it myself before, so this cake was actually also a bit of a surprise for me, too.
A cake always feels a bit like a black box – you never really now how it’s come out before you actually cut it. And as I don’t bake very much recently, my experience in getting proportions and timing right is somewhat limited, making the moment of truth even more exciting. And this cake was just sooo juicy! Of course, the ingredients as such helped, too – with all the carrots and almonds involved you would probably have to bake the cake into submission to get it too dry. I love these kinds of cakes – the juicier, the better!
We had lots of savoury food at our party, too – paprika-chicken skewers, curry and parsley flavoured meat balls, spinach and mushroom filled crepe rolls as well as polenta slices. As usual, I was really worried it might not be enough and people might leave hungry, but (also as usual, as Simon would say), there was plenty, and we enjoyed the leftovers for brunch the day after (particularly the meatballs were just the perfect thing for a hangover breakfast…). Some of these recipes may follow in the weeks to come, but for the moment I’ll start with the carrot cake:
Ginger-Flavored Rüeblitorte
| for a 26cm cake tin |
| 300g sugar |
| 450g carrots |
| 450g ground almonds |
| 120g cake flour |
| 8 eggs |
| 3 teaspoons of finely chopped fresh ginger |
| grated zest of 1 lemon |
| 2 packages vanilla sugar |
| 1 teaspoon baking powder |
| some cinnamon |
| a dash of cointreau |
| a pinch of salt |
| some butter and extra flour to prepare the cake tin |
for the icing |
| juice of 1 yuzu (or ½ lemon) |
| 180g icing sugar |
| some crushed almonds to garnish |
Pre-heat the oven at 180°C. Grease the cake tin and cover with flour. Peel and finely grate the carrots. Very finely chop the fresh ginger (to tiny pieces of about 2mm) and combine with the carrots.
Separate the egg yolks from the whites and whisk them together with the sugar, the vanilla sugar, the cointreau and the grated lemon zest until foamy, then stir in the carrot and ginger mixture. In a different bowl, thoroughly combine the grated almonds, the flour, the baking powder, the cinnamon (as much as you like) and the pinch of salt. Add it to the egg batter and mix until smooth. Finally whisk the egg whites until stiff and carefully fold them into the batter. Fill into the prepared cake tin and bake for about 55 minutes. Check by briefly inserting a toothpick – when it comes out clean, the cake is done.
For the icing, mix the yuzu (or lemon, or lime) juice with the icing sugar until they form a thick, white, sticky mixture. Once the cake has cooled down, take it out of the tin and cover with the icing, using a brush. The "real" thing would be to garnish the "Rüeblitorte" with some marzipan carrots, but there was not chance I could get them in Japan, so I just sprinkled some crushed almonds on top instead.