Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake

I absolutely love marble cake. Maybe it’s a remnant of my childhood, maybe I’m just intrigued by a cake that has two colours because I’m easily amused. Either way, on my noble quest for more pumpkin recipes I decided to tweak my Grandmother’s marble cake recipe to be a dash more autumnal.

Scroll down for a more spring-y version that I made in this video!

I also decided to use pumpkin guts here – an often overlooked and thrown-away part of the pumpkin that is actually just as edible as the rest, and I don’t like to waste food.
I bake my marble cake in a traditional bundt cake tin but any other cake tin with a volume of about two litres. But off to the recipe!

You’ll need:

• 4 eggs
• 120g soft butter
• a dash of salt
• 175g sugar
• 300g flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 100g pumpkin guts sans seeds or pureed pumpkin
• 2 tbsp cocoa
• 20g dark chocolate, grated
• 150g yoghurt
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• 2 tsp or 1 sachet of vanilla sugar
• 1 dash black pepper, cloves and ginger each, all ground

Cream the soft butter with sugar, salt and vanilla sugar until it is evenly mixed, then beat the eggs in. Mix flour and baking powder and sieve it onto the batter, add yoghurt and mix until smooth. Take about three scoops of batter into a different bowl.

Chop up the pumpkin guts so the strings won’t just cluster in one place and mix them with the bigger part of the batter. Add the spices, stir and fill into the tin.

Mix the set-aside batter with cocoa, chocolate and milk and add it on top of the spiced part. Marble and mix the batters with a fork.

Bake at 175°C for an hour – you might want to do a knife test after 45 minutes depending on your tin.

Let cool and dust with powdered sugar if desired (if not you might as well eat it while it’s hot, it’s delicious with the rest of that yoghurt).

My Grandmother uses crème fraîche instead of yoghurt but I found out that this works just as well and might leave the cake a bit lighter. But it’s still an option, just replace it 1:1.

If you don’t happen to have pumpkin guts around (like me when I baked this cake a second time two days after the first) pureed pumpkin does the job just as well. Chop it up into cubes, add some water – half of it should be covered – and let it boil for a few minutes. I just let it simmer while I prepare the rest of the cake which works quite well, but you might still have an eye on it, just in case. When it’s cooked just mash it up or use a blender and you’re all set.

For a fruity raspberry variation, leave out the spices and cocoa (plus milk). Puree and strain (to get rid of the seeds) 150g of frozen or fresh raspberries and add them to the larger part of the batter, using plain vanilla for the marble effect instead.

I made another of those recipe cards for this cake! I really like them, they are endearingly old-fashioned in a non-threatening way. Feel free to print or pin it (there might be more at some point)!

Let me know if you try this recipe (I’m sure my Grandma would love to hear that people liked what’s essentially her recipe but pumpkin-spiced) and have a wonderful weekend! ♥

Lamb’s Lettuce & Pumpkin Salad

It’s Autumn at last, and Autumn means pumpkin time! So when my lovely Verdin suggested posting a pumpkin recipe each week of October I happily obliged, and here we are. It’s a nice warm salad that actually works as a main course when done with the amounts listed below, or as an entrée or side salad if you just make less.

Feeds 2:

• ½ medium Hokkaido pumpkin
• 1 apple, more sour than sweet (I’d recommend Gravensteiner or Finkenwerder Herbstprinz)
• 2 hands of lamb’s lettuce
• 1 hand of Welsh onion greens
• 1 hand of rocket
• sunflower seeds
• optional: 1 block of feta
• sunflower oil
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp ground black pepper
• apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp honey
• dash of nutmeg, paprika, ginger each
• small shallot
• small clove of garlic

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Dice the pumpkin, add some sunflower oil and sprinkle with a dash of nutmeg, salt and cinnamon each. Bake for 30 minutes.

Wash the lamb’s lettuce – it’s notoriously hard to clean, and the easiest way is chopping off the part where the leaves grow apart and then just dump everything into a bowl of water to get the soil off – and rocket thoroughly and set aside. Chop the onion greens and, if necessary, the salads, and finely dice the apple.

In a small bowl, mix 50-70 ml (depends on your taste, and you can always add more) sunflower oil and two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar with cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, paprika, ginger and honey. I find it easiest to mix in the honey last, but do whatever works for you.

Roast the sunflower seeds in a small frying pan without oil. When the seeds start turning brown add finely chopped garlic and shallots. Fry until the garlic starts turning light brown.

Do not, under no circumstances, combine the salad with still-warm pumpkin unless you want to eat right away. The salad will go limp and mushy, and you don’t want that. Add the pumpkin to the greens when you’re ready to eat, put on dressing and sprinkle with seeds, garlic and shallots. Add feta if you like.

I even made one of these neat little recipe cards for easier pinning (or printing, if you so desire). Let me know if you liked it in case you try this recipe, and keep looking out for more pumpkin recipes this month! ♥

My Top Five Farmer’s Market Pet Peeves

Don’t get me wrong: I love my job at the farmer’s market. I love being out there in every kind of weather, I love handling vegetables, I love how I feel serving a purpose.

I don’t love all of our customers, though. Some of the people who buy our produce are lovely, no, the majority of the people is sweet and I’m always happy to see them. Sadly, we also get entitled, impolite, arrogant, impatient, demanding, condescending, the works, as well.
This is a list about those people.

1. People who can’t queue properly.
   We’ve got signs plastered all over the construction, “please queue at this end of the stall”, complete with a cute arrow made from carrots. I’ve had people stand right in front of one of these, spitting “I didn’t read that anywhere” at me just to storm off when I kindly pointed out that the hint is right there.
   We usually take our time to calmly explain that it’s about fairness, that it’s easier for us to see who’s next this way and that they will be served more quickly when they stand in line, actually, because we direct our attention there when looking for our next customer. The worst thing is that we, the staff, basically don’t even care, it’s the other customers who will get upset and start fighting, and it’s really uncomfortable to have to break up those squabbles. We even had an old man threatening another customer to punch him. People. Gotta love them.
   To be fair, some people just don’t know about the queue, don’t see the signs and assume that they should just stand wherever the things that they want are on display. Some people just accept what we tell them and then go and stand in line, and I for one always thank them for understanding.
   As for the people who insult us, tell us that they don’t care or simply throw the produce they were holding down at the table to storm off… Thank you, next.
2. “Is this really organic?”
   No. We’ve got bio written all over the place for fun. Of course it is! Germany is strict when it comes to the declarations on organic merchandise, so yeah, it is, in fact, organic. And yes, you can use that citrus peel. No, the apples aren’t waxed, that’s just the variety, it produces a wax-like cover when stored. Also, no, we don’t import our apples. Would you kindly stop insulting me when I tell you that they aren’t from New Zealand? Thanks.
3. People complaining about the weather,
   especially the cold, telling me that it’s really snug inside the stall and that we’ve got it sooo good compared to them. That might be the case if it’s well into the minuses outside and you just came in, but it gets zero-ish inside the tent, and I’m not only there for a couple of minutes to shop. I’m there all day. And let me tell you, eight hours in a somewhere-around-freezing point environment are harder on you than one hour of shopping in minus five. We only get heating once it hits zero, anyway, and if it rains the dampness will crawl inside everything you’re wearing. It’s not like we arrive at a fully pitched stall, either, we’ve gotta build that thing, no matter the weather. Just trust me on this one, and don’t tell me that it’s cold or wet outside. I know.
   Disclaimer: I actually like weather small talk because for us it’s not small talk at all. Just don’t pretend that my workplace is luxurious because the salad isn’t frozen.
4. If you’re getting only one cent back think about just leaving it to the clerk who just finished packing your more-than-we-make-in-half-a-day organic grocery shopping. The time you wait for it is probably worth more than that. Just sayin’.
5. “But it’s cheaper at [insert conventional, probably import-based place]!”
   That might well be, and you’re free to shop there! Nobody forces you to take your business to us. I’m not making the prices. IAnd in fact, our farm is already less expensive than some other organic places. There are reasons for the prices, however: Supply and demand. Effort (some plants need more care than others). Fair wages. Certified organic seeds. Scale of workable land. Scale of business. Growing organic food isn’t as easy as conventional. Sorry to break it to you, but the cheapest produce at the discount supermarket is probably neither organic nor locally grown.

We’ve got a surprising range of more-or-less locally grown organic produce at our supermarket, by the way. I don’t buy everything at work because even with my employee’s discount I can’t afford it all the time. I get that sometimes you don’t want to stand in a long line, but it’s still better than standing in the middle of the stall and not getting served at all, isn’t it?

Farmer’s markets, especially ones that limit their vendors to locally grown produce or merchandise, and especially stalls that sell organic produce, have an air of elitism around them (but that might be a topic for another day), and sometimes they seem downright romantic, in a salt-of-the-earth kind of way. I know. I work there. But don’t let it out on the people who work there. Queue. If you can, round up, or at least don’t wait for one. Stupid. Cent. Be nice to people in retail. They are on their feet all day to make your life easier. Every smile, every heartfelt “thank you”, every bit of honest interest is worth so much to us. Make the world a better place, it’s really not that hard sometimes.

And if this post was too negative for you, don’t worry. I’ve got a list with things I love about my job queued up, so come back next week!

FinThSat: Aperture Bakery

Finished Things Saturday is the (usually) bi-weekly counterpart to my UFO Fridays. While there I show you what I’m working on, FinThSat is about finished projects – I used to think that small things weren’t worthy of a separate post but now I just put them in this feature and feel less silly about it. They deserve it! For more FinThSats, look here.

Last time I mentioned this project was only a few days ago – last year. I would be lying if I said that this was my oldest UFO. It wasn’t.

Anyway, while wrapping our bread in kitchen towels was okay and nice and everything this makes it so much better and well-rounded. You can even take the bag to the store for packaging-free breakfast rolls!

I love this linen, it’s just so pretty and sturdy and rural. It’s slightly uneven which is typical for and beautiful about old linen bedsheets. They are among my favourite things to spot in thrift shop because you can use them for just everything.

I think next time I would work on making the nerd reference a bit more visible in the pie design (but not too obvious, hence not the classic cake-with-cherry-on-top one would expect), but all in all I’m pretty okay with the outcome.

What are you working on at the moment? I’d love to read about it in the comments! ♥

Hedgevlogs 42/2017: Pumpkin Pastry, Psych Talks & Pokémon

Chocolate Zucchini Walnut Cake

Most people look at me like I’ve said somthing along the lines of “actually I’m and alien and I have purple tentacles on my back” when I tell them about zucchini cake. It’s one of the few things my Mum actually cooks or bakes really well (the other being pasta salad and parmesan chili biscuits). The cake is moist, almost brownie-like, and has a lot of chocolate. The last one I made was so dark it almost looked purple…
It’s really yummy, I swear!

That’s, if you like zucchini in the first place.
The zucchini makes the stuff more moist and makes it stay soft and yummy for a longer time. You won’t even taste it. I’ve had people turning green when I told them about this and asking for more when they finally tried it.

Makes one baking tray, ~25 pieces

400-450g zucchini (about a large one or two smaller ones)
450g flour, Type 405
200g sugar
4 eggs or 4 tbs soy flour (mix with water until you get a paste)
¼l oil
2 tsp baking soda
200g walnuts, chopped
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp gingerbread spice (pumpkin spice would probably work, too)
4 tbs cocoa powder
water

Grate your zucchini and, if necessary, chop your walnuts and thoroughly mix everything. If the mix is too dry just add water.
Pour/spread onto a lined baking tray and bake at ~200°C for 30 minutes.
Cut into squares.

You can now either let it cool and cover it later with dark chocolate couverture or you can say, well, screw it, and just put chocolate spread on it right now. Which is what I usually do.

You can substitute the zucchini with practically any other gratable fruit or vegetable, really, but I like the original best.

The cake keeps surprisingly well thanks to the zucchini, theoretically, practically it rarely does last long enough. It’s become a favourite for our Pathfinder nights because it’s so easy and quick to make, too. I suppose you could make it in a fancy tin or silicone mold, too, but while this doesn’t look like much it’s how I learned to love it.

Happy baking! ♥