Elbe Flood Cake Part 1: Apricot Crumble Cake

Some of you international people might have heard that parts of Europe, including 
Germany have been suffering under severe floods. I'm based in Hamburg but my parents live on a farm directly next to the Elbe river. 



The water level was rising for several days, until it reached its peak on Friday. All week we had all kept an eye on the levels and my parents seemed to be doing ok, given that they had the help of lots of people, firemen, army, SES, etc. However on Friday my parents said every helping hand would be good as it started to look critical. I arrived at my parents and it looked, well, wet. The backyard was flooded, there was a huge "lake" behind our house and the fields were flooded as well. On Saturday the groundwater had reached our basement which meant regular shoveling of water. 

Donna Hay's Rhubarb Dumplings

If you're looking for a quick and easy weeknight dessert then this will be perfect! This recipe combines two great things: A Donna Hay recipe and rhubarb. Rhubarb season is coming to an end in Germany but I still had a bunch of it lying in my fridge and I wanted to try something new. Last night I was looking through "Seasons" by Donna Hay and I came across this recipe.

It's part of Donna's winter section, as Australians seem to prefer to eat rhubarb in winter, anyway, I thought this can also be eaten in summer. Maybe not on a thirty degree hot day, but certainly on a German summer day. The vanilla dumpling tastes devine in combination with the rhubarb compote, you could probably also add some cream or ice cream but it tastes awesome just by itself!

Chocolate Caramel Tartlettes with Salt Flakes

My birthday was over a month ago and as I've told you before I made a big birthday spread at the office. One of my colleagues wasn' there and when she looked through my photos she suggested I should make the chocolate caramel tartlettes again.

Since I hadn't baked anything this weekend, I thought it was a great idea, plus this particular colleague deserves a treat! Another reason for making these is that I did promise to post recipes of the things I made for my birthday.