Pumpkin Cake with Honey Marzipan Streusel

Anyone living in the United States is used to seeing the sudden increase in pumpkin flavored treats and knowing that fall has officially arrived. Here in Tübingen I have not had that experience, and living in a country that lacks both Halloween and Thanksgiving, Christmas has been in the grocery stores for almost a month already. I, however, do not wish to succumb to pressure telling me that winter and Santa Claus will be here soon, and instead want to enjoy my favorite season - fall. Thus, a few weeks ago, I ushered in fall by purchasing a two euro book called "Die Kürbisfibel" (The Pumpkin/Squash Handbook), which contains recipes for every type of pumpkin/squash food item you can imagine (except pumpkin pie, which unfortunately has yet to make it to Germany). A few days after purchasing that book, I made my first recipe from it: pumpkin cake with honey-marzipan streusel.

Kürbiscake mit Marzipanstreuseln

from Die Kürbisfibel (Brancucci and Bänziger, pronto Kochbücher), my translation

Ingredients:

150 g Butter

150 g Raw Sugar

2 Eggs (whipped)

300 g Pumpkin Puree

1/2 Teaspoon Sea Salt

1/2 Teaspoon Ground Ginger

Zest from 1 Lemon

1 Tablespoon Phosphate-Free Baking Powder

350 g Flour

350 g Honey-Marzipan*

5 Tablespoons Flour

1 Tablespoon Cinnamon

75 g Butter (melted and cooled)

*Honey-Marzipan is marzipan made with honey instead of sugar. This may be difficult to find in the United States, and if you cannot find any I would simply add a tablespoon of honey to the streusel. However, if adding your own honey, I would purchase the least sweet marzipan variety available.

Honey-Marzipan

Directions:

For the streusel: Place the marzipan in the freezer for five minutes, before removing it and grating it finely.

Mix in the flour and cinnamon, then add the butter and crumble with your fingers.

Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius, and grease a 22 cm long bread tin.

For the dough: Whip the butter and the sugar together. Add the eggs, beating well after each one. Mix in the salt, ginger, lemon zest, and pumpkin puree.

Mix together the baking powder and flour, and add them to the butter/egg mixture.

Fill the bread pan half-way with dough, and sprinkle half of the streusel mixture on top. Add the rest of the dough, and then the rest of the streusel.

Bake for around 60 minutes, then remove and let cool in the pan.

Ready to go into the Oven

The final result

Poppyseed Roll

There are very few things better to do on a lazy rainy morning than attempt something brand new in the kitchen. As this is the first of many such days as fall begins in Germany, I was particularly excited to spend one of my last days before classes treating myself to something delicious. I've been really wanting to try out my new rolling pin, so I decided that baking would be the activity of the day. I bought this rolling pin in New York and brought it all the way here, even after finding out my suitcase was incredibly overweight and being told I had to get rid of whatever was non-essential. This rolling pin was most definitely essential. It is handleless, making it easier to maneuver, and it has markings on two sides (one in inches and one in centimeters), allowing you to measure how far you've rolled out your dough. After an exciting incident making croissants with a mini measuring tape last spring, this seemed like an invaluable feature. The rolling pin is also made out of silicone, making clean-up especially easy (and even easier if you have a dishwasher, which I sadly do not).

Moving onto the actual dessert, I must say that one of my favorite aspects of baked goods in Germany is poppyseed, or Mohn. I was delighted the first time I walked into Kaufland's baking section and saw the multitude of options for baking with Mohn. Not only are there multiple brands of poppyseeds, but there are also various types of pre-prepared filling. For today I wanted to work with the seeds themselves, so I picked a recipe that did not call for the pre-made filling. This works well for anyone in the U.S. who wants to try the recipe, as it's definitely easier to find poppyseeds than poppyseed filling. As before, the translation is my own, so please forgive me if it is a little awkward. I got this recipe from "Das Grosse GU Familien Backbuch" that I mentioned here. Also in that post you will see an explanation for the prepared "packages" of dry ingredients that are popular in Germany, including zest. If zesting the fruit yourself, you can add a teaspoon or so of sugar to make it more like the package available in Germany.

Mohnrolle


Ingredients:
1 Package of dry Yeast (7g)
150 g Sugar
225 ml Milk
Pinch of Salt
1 Package Fine Orange Zest (6g)
350 g Flour
150 g Butter
2 Eggs
250 g Poppyseed
75 g Raisins (you can also use raisins soaked in rum or rum extract)
50 g finely chopped almonds
5 tablespoons Apricot Jam
4 tablespoons Sliced Almonds

Directions:
Heat 125 ml of milk to a lukewarm temperature, and mix in the yeast and a teaspoon of sugar. Mix the salt, half of the orange zest, and the flour in a bowl. Add the yeast and milk mixture, as well as 75 grams of sugar, 75 grams of butter, and one egg, and knead it together until it forms a smooth dough. Let it sit for 45 minutes.

Heat the rest of the milk and pour it over the poppyseeds. Add the rest of the sugar, orange zest, and butter, as well as the remaining egg and the raisins and chopped almonds. Mix well.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Roll out the dough to a 40 cm x 40 cm square, and spread the poppyseed filling on top, leaving 2 cm on each side.

Roll the dough, and leave the crease on the bottom against the cookie tray. Let it sit for 15 minutes, before piercing it 12 times with a fork and baking it for 30 minutes.

Sift the jam* and spread it over the top of the roll. Sprinkle it with the sliced almonds. Let cool and enjoy!

*I did not sift the jam and it turned out fine. However I found that I needed less than 5 tablespoons of it.