Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Frankfurt Crown Cake

This is how Frankfurter Kranz gets translated by Wikipedia. It is a specialty from Frankfurt (you wouldn't have guessed, wouldn't you?). It is filled with jam and butter cream and covered with almond brittle. I got a request to make it from somebody who had it once and really liked it. It is actually very easy to make, although it doesn't look like that.






You need:

Dough:

  • 100 g butter. Better take it out of the fridge half an hour before usage
  • 150 g sugar

  • Vanilla bean

  • good brown rum (a table spoon full)

  • 1 pinch of salt

  • 3 eggs 

  • 150 g flour
  • 50 g starch

  • 2 baking soda

brittle: 

  • 10 g butter

  • 60 g sugar

  • 125 g chipped almonds

butter cream:
  • 80g custard powder
  • vanilla bean

  • 100 g sugar
  • salt

  • 500 ml milk

  • 250 g butter

for decoration
:
  • 3 EL cranberry jam

  • cherries for decoration
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Mix butter, sugar, scratched inside of vanilla bean, rum and salt in a pot until you get a nice dough. Add eggs and mix well. Add flour, starch and baking soda and mix only shortly until you get a good dough. Butter and flour the pan.
Bake for 40 minutes until done. Take out and let sit for a few minutes, then turn cake out on rack and cool completely.


For the brittle, heat butter, sugar, and almonds slowly in a pan until it gets brown. Take care not to let it burn. Put brittle on aluminium foil to cool.

For the butter cream, prepare the custard: Mix the custard, sugar and a pinch of salt with three table spoons of the 500ml milk. Put the rest of the milk and the inside of the vanilla bean in a pan and bring to boil. Take of heat, stir custard-milk mix into and continue stirring. Let it cook for another two minutes, while stirring all the time. Then take of heat and let cool down. Stir every now and then during cooling, this way you won't get a skin on the custard. When it is cold, mix it with butter. It is important that the custard is cold, otherwise it will curdle.

Cut the cold cake twice. Spoon jam on lowest part, then spoon a quarter of the butter cream on top, and add the middle part of the cake. Spoon another quarter of the butter cream on this part and place top part upon it. Spoon rest of butter cream on cake, but leave two table spoons of butter cream for decoration.
Put brittle on cake. I throw it against the cake, and fill up "holes" by attaching brittle to the cake by hand. It is easier done than explained. Decorate with left-over butter cream and cherries. Cool for four hours before serving.
Enjoy :-)

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