Tis the season and the Glühwein is flowing with kimchi and mung bean threads!

For our holiday cake hour we feature a genuine German Glühwein - the hot mulled wine that you find all over the Christmas markets of Europe, Germany in particular.  In fact, if you are wondering through one of the markets and suddenly come upon a crowd of people it invariably means that a Glühwein stand is nearby.

Nice spread for cake hour!

The wine is ready to go!

 To go with the wine we usually have traditional Christmas baked good like Stollen and cookies.  Today we featured several kind of cookies including a gluten free item.  These were chocolate plantain pseudo-cookies. The were shaped like cookies but were a little mushy and soft and since they were gluten free they really aren't cookies. So we are going to refer to them as choco-plantain patties.  There's a bit more alliteration in that anyway.

Choco-plantain patties or pseudo-cookies! Gluten free!  Yay!

Please note that the rest of the selections were gluten full or fortified.  We had some chocolate cookies that our baker cooked to long or so she thought. The final result was that they got real hard. They tasted good, were perfect for dunking in the wine and were certainly not as hopelessly overdone as they were made out to be.

Soft marshmallow creation on the left and jawbreaking chocolate cookies on the right!

Another treat were some Italian Christmas cookies festively decorated in red and green frosting.  Also homemade by one of our colleagues who likes to dabble in the kitchen.  These were the simple buttery kind that are not too sweet and a little soft.  A lot of times they are glazed with a sugar frosting but our chef opted to top some of them with frosting and the others naked. These also went very well with the wine!

Nice buttery Italian Christmas Cookies

We also included some classic oatmeal chocolate chip cookies which is one of my holiday staples. And lastly we had some marshmallow type confection made by one of former colleagues who did some awesome baking over the years.

Oatmeal and chocolate chips make a classic!

Our gluten free advocate pushed for a determination as to which cookie was the best, but we were not going to take that kind of position. So we just concocted a bunch of categories that made sure each of the cookies won its category that way everyone was a winner.

Thrilled with his Glühwein!

These ladies are glowing for sure!

He needs some Glühwein to wash down that pattie!

Down the hatch!

A few more satisfied customers!

We dressed for the festive occasion!

And now to get skiing!

A few gifts were presented and the theme for them was mung bean and kimchi!  Figure that out!

Look what I made and then packaged to look like it's from Korea!

The kinchi mung bean buyers!

Learning that kinchi pots are stolen like lobster traps!

The Force Awakens!!

Today is the day before the official release of the new "Star Wars" film.  The big release is tomorrow but one of our colleagues, a respectable fan, has his preview tickets for tonight. To mark the occasion he came up with a "Star Wars" themed cake.  To those of us it required some explanation.  Half the cake represents 'The Empire" and half the "The Rebel Alliance".  So on the top on one side of the cake is half the symbol of "The Empire" and the other part of the cake has half the symbol of the rebels.  Take a look at the two and symbols and the cake and judge for yourselves.

The Empire Symbol

Symbol of the Rebel Alliance!

Empire on the left, Rebel on the right!

The cake itself is split into two. The Empire side is a chocolate cake and the rebel side is a red velvet cake.  Clearly the baker was trying to make the statement that the two sides are unique and cannot be represented by one type of cake.  The two sides will never see eye to eye and their separation had to be emphasized in the body of the cake.  Doesn't that sound meaningful?

Colorful if nothing else!

Pretty tall cake for a single layer!

Our "Star Wars" fan decked out and ready to go!

The cake was good considering boxed cake mixes and canned frosting were used. It certainly met expectations which were somewhat lower than something from Pastiche.

Ready to polish off a nice chunk!

Missed a few cake hours and now catching up!

The remaining pieces show that there was either a preference for the chocolate or more sympathy for the Empire than the Rebels. We suspect the former.

Red Velvet on the Rebel Side and chocolate for the Empire

Slightly more folks opted for the Empire side!

With all the hype that is inundating society right now, we were happy to celebrate a small part of the current Star Wars mania!\

A really big Dominican Dulce De Leche Cake

Today's offering for student cake month builds upon our guy's entry from a previous year.  He chose to bring a special Dominican Cake that was quite colorful and decorative.  

It's Dominican Cake time again!

Only basic natural ingredients to boot!

This time he went with the same category of cake but upped the size.  The label says it all " Family Cake Dominican Cake Dulce de Leche".  It is quite colorful again with a tint towards magenta where the previous one was definitely cyan.  Although you might think this looks quite commercial notice also on the label that there are no artificial ingredients.

And it's a good sized one too!

Frilly little swirls in a very electric color!

Simply decorative top ready for an inscription that didn't come!

Dulce de Leche is caramel for those unschooled and so this turns out to be a yellow cake with a caramel filling. It is iced with a whipped shortening frosting and decorated with the magenta version thereof. 

The caramel is in between the layers hence Dulce de Lcche!

The cake was actually quite good - these Dominican cakes are very moist - and not overly sweet though it looked like it would be.  There was plenty left over and I suspect we will be finishing this off over the course of a few days.

Quick Key Lime Pie

It's always nice to have someone around who can throw something together.  One of our cake hour attendees has a good and quick recipe for Key Lime Pie.  Since it is student cake month and she is only recently a graduate, she pitched in during student cake month and we got a pie!

Oh, I just throw it together, you see!

Just like the pros!

The little dollop of whipped cream is hardly enough!

An easy key lime pie recipe is, as you can infer, not complicated.  A graham cracker crust, condensed milk, lime, egg yolks a little baking, a little chilling and you are done!  There are also some that are just lime juice mixed with whipped cream but we prefer the former.  It tastes good, is relatively light and is an all around great summer treat.   If you ever feel like throwing one together we're always here to try it! It won't last long!

Doesn't take long for it to disappear!

Euphoria to go!

Another student cake and this one was also commercially produced - no baking from scratch.  In case you don't know it the title of the post is what you find on the exterior of a Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream cake - euphoria to go. That is what we had today for our student cake month treat.  You can't really argue with B&J.  Just about every ice cream test will show them to be the best. 

First Ben and Jerry's cake of 2015!

I didn't just bring an ice cream cake.....

........I brought Euphoria though I don't look euphoric!

Recently we had the opportunity to visit the factory in Waterbury, Vermont and took the tour.  We showed up and faced a 45 minute wait. Since they give tours until 8pm and we were in no hurry, we left and decided to return in the early evening.  At that time we walked right in to the next tour.  The tour was adequate. On the day of our tour, there was no production so the factory floor, which is only seen from a mezzanine viewing area, was quiet.  After seeing a short video of the history of the company, you are led to the mezzanine and they go through the step by step process with numbers for each of the steps located by the referred to piece of machinery.  The height of the tour is the free ice cream sample at the end which was a decent portion. After the sample you leave the tour via the gift shop. Outside there are a number of other dis-er attractions including and ice cream shop where you can pay for more, a place to tie-dye a shirt and an opportunity to be photographed as Ben and Jerry.

You too can be B&J!

The graveyard of discontinued flavors was fun even though we had not heard of many of them. On the whole it is kind of worth the trip but definitely go late to avoid the crowds. We had one over-active child on the tour. Can you imagine what it would be like with a lot!!

Two types of ice cream ans frozen whipped cream.

The cake itself today was what was to be expected.  The ice cream was good. Strawberry cheesecake or similar was on the bottom and cookies and cream was the top layer.  The frosting layer was whipped cream. We did not allow the cake any time outside the freezer which is something that should be done to defrost the whipped cream. Without softening the whipped cream tastes like frozen fat which is what it is, of course.   The little cookies on the top made to look like balloons were a hit. 

The cookies on top were especially appreciated.

The Wimbledon Drink

Years ago when working as a bartender, there was always a bottle of Pimms's Number One cup on the bar. On the top shelf no less!.  During the entire four year bartending career the amount of Pimm's in the bottle never went down. If any was imbibed at all it was probably the bar staff giving it a try.  We wondered what was it even there for and what was it about.

Not seen since the bartending days!

The recipe for Pimm's is a secret!

Today we found out!!  It being summer, one of our colleagues returned from across the pond and Merry Old England with a bottle of Pimm's. She proceeded to make a type of punch that is apparently the appropriate and common way that Pimm's is consumed.  It turns out even that the recipe is on the bottle and is recommended as the way to drink Pimm's.  How many alcoholic beverages are there that suggest they be mixed with something else?  This may be the only one!

Clearly you are supposed to mix it with something.

The punch consisted of a certain amount of Pimm's with a larger amount of European style lemonade.  This is basically a carbonated soft drink similar to Sprite with no lime. (Did you know Sprite was lemon-lime flavor?)  Our hostess didn't want to use Sprite so she mixed it with Minute Maid's version of lemonade. This tasted like lemonade all right but was missing the fizz.  We just couldn't have it all!  In addition to the lemonade, strawberries, cucumbers, oranges and mint.  She forgot the oranges and the mint so we had the strawberries and cucumbers.

Giving it the best shot with ersatz lemonade!

Garnished with some cukes and strawberries...minus the mint and the orange.

Tennis, anyone?

This was enjoyable and refreshing for the summer.  Apparently it is the drink at polo matches and Wimbledon so we felt vedy, vedy proper whilst quaffing this.  We also used it to wash down some extra cake from Friday. This had nothing to do with student cake month so no ratings just another unique cake hour treat!!

Great to wash this down...leftover from Friday!!

Another big one!!

Our latest entry for student cake month was a redo of last year.  Opting not to bake something, she instead chose to make a splash by buying a REALLY BIG cake.  One year ago it was gigantic chocolate cake - chocolate cake, chocolate filling and frosting and chocolate chips just about everywhere.  For her student cake month entry this year she returned to the same scene of the crime, as it were.  Off to Gregg's Bakery, never known for anything small, and back she came with another monster that appeared to be another massive chocolate concoction.

Once again I'm thinking big!

It's a little basic looking but nicely done.

Pretty smoothly coated!

But it wasn't..it was a massive chocolate covered concoction. This was Gregg's version of a vanilla/white cake with chocolate frosting. It was four layers of cake with thin alternating choco and white filling between the layers.   There was an appropriate amount of butter cream chocolate frosting smoothly slathered on the top and sides. There were shavings of white chocolate for decoration and a maraschino cherry smack dab in the middle...one cherry!

Could you spare the cherry?

Four layers tall!

It was not the most elegant cake we have ever seen but you can always be sure that anything from Gregg's will be fresh.  The cake is fittingly tasty and moist and the frosting plentiful but not overwhelming. We did not finish this in one setting so we have something to look forward to tomorrow.  Our cake student gets 3.5 starts for her much appreciated contribution.