~ 60gr

The Spices
• 2 tsp cardamum powder
• 4 cinnamon sticks (Ceylon)
• 2 tsp ginger powder
• 15 cloves
• 2 tsp (sweet) fennel seed
• 2 star anise
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 10 tsp black tea (e.g. Darjeeling)

And further...
• a teaspoon (tsp)
• mortar and pestle
• air-tight tea box

For your Chai-Latte
• 150 ml water
• a tablespoon (tb)
• 1 tb Chai-mix
• a tea filter
• a cup
• additionally: 50 ml milk
• additionally: sugar or honey

Step 1 – Tea Mixture
Firstly put the black pepper, the star anise, the cloves and the fennel seed in the mortar and pestle them a bit. It's very crunchy and should be done before adding the powders and the cinnamon. Then break the cinnamon in little pieces and also pestle them. Usually I have very long cinnamon sticks, so I crush them until they are thin and smaller pieces. After you've finished that, just add the powders and the tea and mix it. You don't need to pestle it again. And here we go! You're own Chai-Tea-Mix is done! Just fill it in an air-tight teabox and keep it dry. I can recommend those small, vintage boxes, but that's totally up to you!

Step 2 – A delicious Chai-Latte
Boil 150 ml of water. Put 1 tb of your mix into a tea filter and put it into a cup. Fill up with boiling water and wait 5-7 minutes before you remove the filter. Meanwhile, heat up the milk a bit and put it into the fresh tea. For a nice foamy chai-latte, whisk the milk up. If you like, you can add sugar or honey. Enjoy!

The cake
• 150 gr dark chocolate
• 250 gr soft butter
• 350 gr sugar
• 2 packs vanilla sugar
• 6 eggs (size M)
• 350 gr plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 125 ml milk
• 4 tbsp cocoa powder
• 500 gr low-fat curd
• 20 gr corn flour

Further needed
• some butter and flour for the baking mould
• a tube pan
• enough bowls and a (electrical) whisk
• a spit of wood
• icing sugar
• additionally decoration

working time: 90 min




Step 1 – Preparations
For the first step, take out all pans from the oven and preheat it on 150°C air circulation. Then put a piece of butter in the tube pan and spread it carefully. Then take some flour and powder the whole pan. It's just meant to be a thin layer so if there are thicker areas, hold the pan over your kitchen sink and pat it on the outside. So the flour which is too much should get out. Put the tube pan on a baking tray, covered with baking paper.

Step 2 – The Chocolate Dough #1
Melt the dark chocolate in a hot water bath. Therefore, put a porcelain bowl into a cooking pot and put some water underneath. Don't boil the water and be careful not to let splash water into the chocolate. Whisk the butter with 250 gr sugar and 1 pack of vanilla sugar till it's creamy. Add 4 eggs one after another. Mix the flour and the baking powder and whisk it under the butter-egg-mixture. At last, add the less hot chocolate and cocoa.

Step 3 – The Cheesecake-Filling
Take a clean bowl and mix 2 eggs, 100 gr sugar and 1 pack of vanilla sugar. After that, add the curd and the corn starch. whisk till it is creamy. Additionally for more of a vanilla flavour, put some vanilla essence into it.

Step 4 – The Chocolate Dough #2
Fill 2/3 of the prepared chocolate dough into the tube pan. Form a well in the dough and make sure that the dough forms a verge on the pan. Fill the cheesecake-filling into the well, try to make sure that it doesn't run over the verge. Whisk the rest of the milk under the last 1/3 of the chocolate dough and carefully put it on the cheesecake-filling. It should cover it well. Then bake for 1 hour. After the baking time, take out and leave in the pan till it almost cooled out. Beware of touching the showing bottom of the cake, thinking it is cold enough and then overthrow the cake to early. That was the mistake I did, but I could rescue it with some decoration as you see here.

~ 30 cookies

Raspberry Swirls
• 500 gr flour
• a pinch of salt
• 250 gr sugar
• 0.5 tsp baking powder
• 1 pack vanilla sugar
• 1 egg (size M)
• 250 gr butter
• 200 gr raspberry jelly
• additionally vanilla essence

and further
• electrical mixer with dough hook
• baking paper
• flour for the working space
• cling film

Step 1 – The Short Pastry
Today we're going to do a bit of a tricky dough: A short pastry. If you never have done it before, don't worry. I'll guide you through it! Those who has done it already, you can feel it that this kinda dough is a bit of a piece of scientific experiment. But let's start now, we'll got this! Firstly, you mix all the ingredients except the raspberry jelly (use jelly definitely, it's harder than jam) in a bowl. Cut the butter, which is not frozen but fresh from the fridge, in pieces of ca. 1x1 cm. If you want an extra vanilla flavour in it, you can also add some fresh vanilla or vanilla powder. Kardamom, cinammon and other spices are welcome as well, but be careful not to overspice the dough, otherwise you won't taste the jelly at all. For the first mixing, you can use an electrical mixer with a dough hook, but I usually use my hands to knead the dough. Some of you might know that some short pastries are barely kneaded and smooth, but for our swirls, we need a very smooth and well kneaded pastry. Don't worry if your pastry at first is very crumbly. After some time of kneading it will turn into a great dough ball.

Step 2 – Roll, roll, roll
When our pastry has a nice consistence, it is cut in two pieces of the same size. Before we start to roll it, put a thin layer of flour on your working space so that the pastry doesn't stick to it. Then you start to roll the first ball of pastry. It is a bit tricky to roll it in form of a rectangle. If the edges are a bit fringy, you can try to cut some of the wifrt pieces off and put them into the places where you have less pastry. The pastry should be rolled even in ca. 3-5 mm thickness. Try to get it as even as you can. Firstly the cookies will look better then and it will be easiert to roll. Repeat with the second pastry ball.

Step 3 – Jelly time!
Now we can take the jelly. I love raspberries, so I took raspberry jelly, of course you can take any other jelly as well. Divide the jelly in parts á 100 gr and spread it over your rolled pastries. Leave a little border of unjellied pastry on two opposing sites, otherwise the end of the swirl roll, you'll make in the next step will not be attached to the pastry underneath because the jelly spills everywhere. When the jelly is spread, carefully peal off one border of the pastry (Careful, it can rip easily) and try to roll it with both of your hands slowly to a proper roll. Repeat with the other pastry. Cover both separated in cling film and put in the fridge for 2 hours.


Step 4 – Baking Time
In the last 20-30 minutes, when the pastry-jelly-roll is in the fridge, preheat the oven on 175°C air circulation. Put baking paper on the baking trays. When the cooling time is up, take one roll, unwrap it and cut the roll into 1 cm thick cookies. Don't cut to hasty and hard, the pastry might break. Carefully transfer the swirl onto the baking tray. Leave some place between the cookies. Bake for 10-12 minutes, till they are slightly gold brown. Take them out of the oven and let cool out a bit before you put them on a cooling rack, they are very soft directly after baking. But then? Just enjoy!

Extra Food-Hack
Clotted or whipped cream with those cookies is aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawesome! Try it ^_^