Yeasted German cake full of crème patisserie and topped with  crunchy honey & almond topping? Yes please!

It’s another Cook’s Country recipe, so lots of conversions from sticks and spoons… Plus I’m going to use my sodo sourdough for the yeasted cake, so more conversions needed.

So I’ll write out the ingredients with my conversions, but if you want the full method: pay up for the Cook’s Country subscription!

For the crème pat:

• 1 tsp unflavored gelatin
• 1 Tbsp water
• 6 medium egg yolks
• 100g golden caster sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 415ml milk
• 2 Tbsp cornflour
• 30g unsalted butter
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract

For the cake:

• 125ml refreshed starter
• 125ml milk
• 1 medium egg plus 2 medium yolks
• 350g strong plain four
• 50g golden caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 115g unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces and softened

For the topping:

• 60g unsalted butter
• 60ml honey
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 60g sliced almonds

The cake is basically made like a brioche, so I made the dough then added in the butter bit by bit.

After some kneading we’ve got our cake brioche dough.

After a couple of hours rising it’s into the cake pan for another couple of hours proofing.

Actually three hours proofing as it didn’t really go puffy. I guess that’s the difference between instant yeast and my modified sourdough version.

The topping gets melted together, then into a 160C fan oven, turn after 20 minutes, check after a total of 30 minutes.

It ended up being in the oven for 45 minutes waiting for the top to brown.

Then it sank :(

Half an hour later we removed it from the tin.

Now we just have to make the creme pat. Then I read it takes three hours to chill… so we did not get our cake the night we were expecting it :(

So the next day we make the creme pat, using the stand mixer as much as possible.

The in-pan part was still by hand… we took turns whisking, and it was painful. I think the hand mixer next time! Eventually we had our creme pat, which then got the chilling it needed.

 

The clever trick for this cake is cutting the top before putting on the creme pat, so you don’t get the pressure on the filling as you cut!

So creme pat goes in.

A alice is cut.

And NOM! Mmm… The cake is dense and tasty, the huge creme pat layer lightens it, and the honey almond topping… tops it :)