Quatre-quarts Recipe (Quatre-quarts Rezept)

Today I'm going to show you a very easy cake with only a few ingredients! You should really try it out.

It's a French Quatre-Quarts and with my 8 years of French I am actually able to translate this one into "Four Quarters", which they call it because you use the same amount of the four main ingredients.


Quatre Quarts for a square cake pan of ca. 8cm x 20cm x 10cm (530kcal /serving (four) )

130g butter
130g sugar
130g eggs
130g flour
10g baking powder
optional vanilla essence

1. Take the butter out of the fridge and let stand until soft.
2. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
3.  Sieve the flour into a bowl. Add the baking powder and mix.
4. Beat the eggs.
5. Now knead the butter in a big bowl. Add the sugar, then the eggs, the vanilla and finally the flour. With a whisk, mix well.
6. Lay your baking pan with baking paper - it should fit perfectly.
7. Pour the dough inside the pan. Knock the pan a few times on a hard ground to remove the air from the dough.
8. Place in your oven and bake for about 40 minutes.
9. If done, place it on a grill and let cool down a bit. Then take the cake out of the pan, remove the paper and let cool down completely.
10. Cut in ca. 2cm thick pieces and done!

Bon Appetit!

Tarte Au Sucre Recipe (Zuckerkuchen Rezept)

In Germany, we know sugar cakes. They're usually very firm, taste like cinnamon and they're good.
So I was a little sceptical, when I was going to make this Belgian sugar cake, which is made with sour cream.

My cake didn't turn out that well, because I changed the recipe a bit to much (I didn't have this, I didn't have that...) ... when it comes to cooking, you can improvise, but at baking when it comes to ingredients you gotta stick to the recipe!


Tarte Au Sucre for 4 (340kcal pro portion (is for 1/8 of the cake))

50ml milk
1tsp sugar
80g butter
250g flour
10g dry yeast
3 egg yolk
salt
100g brown sugar
2 eggs
100g sour cream ( German sour cream seeams to be a bit different than the sour cream you use as dip. It's not that firm. I hope it works as well with American / UK and other sour creams)
Butter to grease
flour to dust
cake pan 23cm in diameter
baking paper

1. Warm the milk (warmer than room temperature!). Microwave will do the job.
2. Cut the butter into pieces.
3. In a bowl, mix flour and yeast. Add a dash of salt and sugar (I don't care what the cook book says, when it's dry yeast, you always mix the dry ingredients first)
4. Add the butter and mix. Now add milk and egg yolks and mix until it's an even dough.
5. Now cover with a clean kitchen towel and place in a very warm place for 30minutes. This can be your bed or next to the radiator (when it's on of course) or, if you don't have a very warm place here's my trick. Use a high (at least 15cm!) grill and place it over one oven plate. Turn the oven on at the lowest heat (at my oven that's stage 1 of 6)! This will make a great dough. I only tried this over electric ovens and I'm not sure how it would work with gas.
6. Preheat your oven to 220°C (electric oven!). Cut a piece of baking paper to fit your cake pan. Slightly grease the paper and then lay it on the bottom of your cake pan. Pour some flour and carefully shake your cake pan to divide evenly.
7. Now roll out your dough. Make it a flat circle, a bit bigger than your pan.
8. Place dough in the pan, so that bottom and walls are covered.
9. Pour the brown sugar in evenly.

10. Now mix the 2 eggs with the sour cream. Pour the mixture over the sugar in the pan.
11. Place your cake in the oven and bake for 10 minutes at 220°C. Then reduce heat to 180°C and keep baking for 20 minutes. If it's not done, bake for another 5-10 minutes.
12. Place the pan on a grill to cool down and your down!

13. When you place your cake on a plate and cut it, you'll be surprised about the filling. :)

Bon appétit!