Wonderful life

After making cupcakes for Leipzig and Dresden, of course, I also had to bake some for my wonderful hometown Berlin! <3 I think Berlin is an amazing city with so many different and beautiful faces, lots of culture and history. They were also made for Mother’s Day (tomorrow), because after all, Berlin is the place where my awesome mum gave birth to me 26 years ago. :)

The theme for these cupcakes were Rote Grütze (red fruit jelly), a dessert that’s quite typical for Berlin. So I made the frosting from raspberry fuit jelly and put some rasperries in the dough. I also wanted to give the cupcakes the colours black - red - gold like the German flag, because, hey, Berlin is our capital city. So the dough is with lots of dark chocolate, cocoa and some chocolate chips, the frosting is raspberry red and the decoration are golden pearls. And a little marzipan Brandenburger Tor for every cupcake!

You can find the recipe here:
http://hellchen.blogspot.de/2012/05/berlin-cupcakes.html

This year I had an awesome birthday present - a trip to Dresden! Last weekend we finally went there, and it is definitely one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. The architecture is stunning, and I guess I’ve never been to such a lively and joyful city. It’s incredible - Dresden has such a sad history, but all you see and feel there now is beauty and happiness. Especially the new built Frauenkirche touched me and brought tears to my eyes. It’s amazing what was built out of ruins, and now I could swear the church looks so proud, as if it knew exactly what a great symbol it is.

Of course, I had to make some cupcakes inspired by the trip! They are a tribute to the delicious Quarkkeulchen, a typically Saxon dessert made with curd cheese and served with applesauce and cinammon. I added curd cheese and small pieces of apples to the dough and made the frosting with applesauce and cinammon. The tiny Frauenkirche decoration is cut out from marzipan.
Baking and eating them makes me wanna go back to Dresden. <3

When we were in Leipzig to visit LBM (Leipzig Book Fair), I totally fell in love with the beautiful city. I thought the colors of the Nikolai church, rose and light green, were stunning. So for Easter celebration, I decided to bake some Leipzig cupcakes. They are marzipan cupcakes, in memory of the yummy Leipziger Lerchen (Leipzig Larks), the traditional pastry with marzipan dough. <3