Daring Bakers July Challenge: Matcha and Cherry Frasier (Anne's birthday cake)

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

As many times before, I used the challenge to create something for a special occassion. This time, it's a friends birthday I made the fraisier for. And as the cake is supposed to be a suprise, I'm not telling anything until it will have been served on saturday because this particulary friend is reading my blog. I'll give you just a small hint: The flavours are coming from far east, from the country of the cherry blossoms and tea ceremonies.

Right - this was supposed a Japanese Frasier flavoured with matcha and cherries, especially made for my friend Anne's birthday.  For the filling I wanted a subtle and sweet taste, so choose some jasmine tea instaed of the vanilla for the creme anglaise. The ready cake didn't look very pretty  - I omitted the almond paste topping because I thougt it would be to sweet for the matcha, and the fillings did look unpleasantly greyish brown (because of the jasmine tea) but must have tasted really good.
Why do I write 'must have'? Because I didn't get a single crumb of it - the birthday guests were eating faster than I could cut the pieces and some guests even ate more than one ... I am glad it turned out so well - I was a little bit unsure if the combination would work out but it obviouly did. It even tasted better than a second cake I made (which was a delicious red velvet cake with straw- and blueberries and a mascarpone and cream cheese frosting). I guess I have to add frasiers to my birthday cake repertoire - next time maybe a lemon-blueberry one? The pictures I took were mostly made at the party, so the quality isn't that brilliant but they are quite nice shots.

Daring Cooks July Challenge: Homemade Noodles - Tiramisu Ravioli with red fruit jelly

Steph from Stephfood was our Daring Cooks‟ July hostess. Steph challenged us to make homemade noodles without the help of a motorized pasta machine. She provided us with recipes for Spätzle and Fresh Egg Pasta as well as a few delicious sauces to pair our noodles with!

I love pasta, especially filled one like tortellini or ravioli. I could eat it every day - just look at the label 'Risotto und Pasta' and you'll find a lot of recipes. Normally I buy the usual stuff at the store, but sometimes when I'm really in the mood for passionate cooking, I am liberating my pasta machine from the depths of my pantry and make pasta from scratch. I've made lasagne and pappardelle (recipes are in German) and even bought a ravioli mould which I hadn't used before. So I thought a Daring Bakers challenge would be the perfect possibility for trying to make ravioli - sweet ravioli. There are a lot of recipes with chocolate pasta, so why not make chocolate ravioli with a sweet filling; and because I am addicted to coffee and Italian desserts I choose to make a tiramisu filling. As the base for the filling I made a Crème pâtissière (pastry cream) with coffee instead of milk and added the mascarpone cream afterwards. The sauce we had red fruit jelly because it's season for sour cherries and red currants which are a good contrast to the sweet pasta.