Please let me share with you the history of this cake. It was originaly baked in a open fireplace and spooned over the spit that was then turned by hand just a meats used to be cooked on a spit and when the cake was done it had a hole in the center and the outside was not nice and smooth but had the texture of treebark therefore the name Baumkuchen or Treecake.
A very old receipe still available in german back shops today. Enjoy
very good. though it doesn't has to take too much time and affort: I used a disposable mini tube pan, and simply pured the batter in thin layers one over the other. when done, and still very warm, i covered the surface with chunks of semisweet chocolate and after they melted simply spread it over, then chilled the whole thing, turned it over took the cake out and coated with chocolate. to make a true swiss baumkuchen just dubble the batter and bake it as suggested above in three 7" springform pans, "paste" the cakes when done with warm apricot jam (adds flavor and color) one on top of the other then cover the whole thing with cocolate frosting. this is originaly a very tall cake as the name suggests: baum = tree.
If you dont have a rotating spin you can also use a square pan that the japanese use along with a rolled up aluminum foil half an inch big to where it'll fit right in the square pan dont forget to cover the rolled aluminum with oil. Use the same technique that you use to make a tamagoyaki (put this in youtube to see how its done) a rolled up egg dish. you put a thin batter on the square pan let it cook until light brown as mention on #4 then put in the rolled up aluminum on the top carefully use a spatula and roll it down to the bottom. take the battered aluminum out carefully and do the same thing over again with the cooked batter then putting the battered aluminum on the top and roll it to the bottom again. repeat the steps hope this helps i actually saw this on a cooking/romance series
this is amazing. i'm not swiss but found the recipe looking for swiss recipes for a themed new years dinner party. this looked too interesting to pass up. it's delicious!! very labour intensive but came out worth it in the end. you can not do anything else while you make this. watch it in your oven as it browns in 1 minute!! spongey cake layered with chocolate...how can you go wrong? the only thing i noticed was the amount of chocolate stated for the topping is WAY too much. could have used 1/2 to 3/4 and it would have been plenty. thanks for the great recipe!!
This cake is AMAZING. I was searching for a recipe for Baumkuchen after watching a contestant make this on Top Chef. This recipe works perfectly. My only advice: the almond paste is difficult to mix with the butter/cornstarch/powdered sugar mixture so I grated the almond paste first and then mixed it with a pastry blender. Not hard to make at all once you get a sense of how hot your broiler is and how thin to make the layers (and it's fine if the first few are a little too brown because it's all covered up anyway). It's a total wow dessert and absolutely delicious!
A lot of work but worth it. It is a very good and unique dessert.
I ate a kit kat on last halloween from trick or treating and it was very fun and good!
