I had the bake on the other day to make this lovely German tree cake. It looks complicated but just requires a bit of patience. The name comes from the many layers of sponge which, once cut open looks like the rings of piece of trunk.
There are different combinations of flavour you can use including rum and marzipan but I just stuck with the basic recipe in case the kids didn’t like it!
Baumkuchen is a great celebration cake which can be stacked
and use chocolate ganache to cover over. It’s a real show stopper – get your bake on and have a go!!
- 255g smooth apricot jam for spreading between layers
- 4 eggs
- 114g sugar
- 207ml sunflower oil
- 207ml orange juice and zest
- 312g plain flour
- 15g baking powder)
Preheat oven to 220 degrees centigrade
Grab a large 25cm springform tin – grease and line.
Mix all ingredients apart from the apricot jam together and put 3 tablespoons in to the bottom of a tin and spread so it covers the bottom. Place in the oven for about 6 mins until golden then repeat 2 more times. Oh the third time grab the jam and layer it thinly on top of the cooked cake then spoon 3 more tablespoons on and repeat the whole process every third layer until you have run out of batter.
Leave to cool
To make the chocolate mirror glaze – recipe and text taken in full from BBC Food
150ml double cream
135g caster sugar
55g/2oz cocoa powder
3 leaves gelatine
- For the chocolate glaze, add the cream, sugar, cocoa powder and 150ml/5fl oz water to a small saucepan and heat gently until the sugar is fully dissolved. Keep stirring during heating. Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 10 minutes.
- Soak the gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water for 5 minutes. Squeeze any excess water from the leaves and stir into the glaze until fully dissolved. Use a sugar thermometer to check the temperature of the glaze and cool to a maximum of 38C before using.
- Pass the glaze through a fine sieve into a measuring jug and tap on a hard surface to encourage any air bubbles to pop.
- Once the cake has finished cooling in the fridge, transfer to a wire cooling rack placed on a large baking tray to catch any excess glaze as you pour it over the cake.
- Pour the glaze evenly over the top of the cake. Check the sides of the cake are covered and add more glaze if needed by reusing any excess glaze caught in the baking tray. Immediately transfer the cake to the fridge to firm up.
