Unfortunately, they don’t ship to Germany . Guess I’ll have to find a way to get them .

Mother nature takes but she also generously gives.

A couple of days ago, I was visiting some friends in Bavaria and we were doing some very touristy stuffs around the very beautiful town of Bamberg (will write more on this later). There’s this must-visit lovely Gothic-style church on the itinerary, whose interior was a tad too dim for the camera, even though it was bright daylight outside, making it rather difficult to capture the elegant interior of the church.

There were however some plain glass windows built high up near the ceiling of the church, allowing shafts of sunlight to create some pools of lights along the pews. Then an idea dawned upon me to have a friend of mine to pose in the small pool of sunlight and she cheerily played along to have a picture of hers taken. I like this picture very much.

We weren’t being disrespectful nor sacrilegious to the church as we were simply taking pictures, right ? Then there were these group of Germans sitting on a pew beside the spot bathed in the rays of sunlight where we posed, amusing themselves while observing us. They were trying unsuccessfully to suppress their chuckles out of our ear shots.

Well, what shall I say? Sometimes we’d have to be thick-faced enough to get the perfect shot, agree? I think we scurried out of the church in no time after that .

With so many strawberries at hand, it doesn’t take me long to figure out how to dispose of them . I’ve been dying to make strawberry rolls myself after tasting the finger-linking-good version from T’s mom a couple of days ago. What shall I say, after toiling in the kitchen for hours in a row in the uncharted waters of making strawberry rolls when at times my brittle wall of confidence tended to be knocked down by sudden bouts of despair, wondering whether it’ll turn out right.Well, I’d say, my earlier round of despondence was rather uncalled for, as the results were better than expected (do I sound like some company analysts reporting its quarterly earning results? ), earning two thumbs up from my ‘unbiased’ fellow guinea pigs . Yumm….despite the not so perfect appearance, the chaos in the kitchen and the mess that had to be cleaned up later on, I was in cloud nine with the first bite.

Will update the post with the recipe later and I’m off to Bavaria! Have a great week ahead!
for the recipe..

Strawberry rolls

For the sponge cake roll you’ll need:
4 eggs
175g sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar
80g starch flour
80g flour
1 tsp baking powder

For the filling, you’ll need:
500g fresh strawberries
6 pieces of white gelatine
500g curd cheese
250ml of cream (to be whipped)
75g sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
1 big tbsp of Kirschwasser

For the decorations, you’ll need:
Some strawberries
1 cup of whipped cream
Some lemon balm leaves

Preparation of the sponge cake roll:
1. Separate egg yolks from egg whites. Beat the egg whites together with a teaspoon of sugar at the highest speed of your hand mixer until the egg whites turn into a buoyant foam.

2. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks together with the 175g of sugar and vanilla sugar until combined. Then pour in the egg-white-foam without mixing them at this point.

3. Combine the starch flour, flour and the baking powder and sieve in the flour mixture on top of the egg-white-foam. Use a spoon to fold in the whole eggs-and-flour-mixture until everything is nicely combined. There is no need to use a mixer at this point because you’ll be surprised at how easily the flour and eggs-mixture can be easily combined just by using a spoon!

4. Preheat the oven at 195°C. Grease a square baking tray at the sides and lay it with parchment paper. Pour in the cake dough and smooth the dough out on the baking tray. Bake for about 10 minutes. Don’t over bake the dough as it’ll turn out too hard to be rolled.

5. After baking, flip the cake dough on to a clean, damp kitchen cloth. Moisten the parchment paper that usually sticks on the cake and carefully lift the parchment paper from the cake.
6. Roll the cake together with the kitchen cloth and let it cool completely.

Preparation of the strawberry filling:
1. Wash and cut the strawberries into small cube size.

2. Soften the white gelatine and heat it on gentle heat to dissolve it according to the instructions on the packets.

3. Whip the cream and mix it together with gelatine.

4. Add in lemon juice, Kirschwasser, and the whipped cream-gelatine mixture to the cream curd cheese and whip everything together with the mixer until combined. Scoop about 2 tablespoons of the mixture aside to be brushed on the cake when it’s finished. Then mix in the strawberries into the rest of the cheese mixture and use a spoon to once again mix everything together.

5. Unroll the sponge cake and smear the strawberry filling on the sponge cake. Then carefully, with the support of the kitchen cloth (which is still underneath the sponge cake), roll the cake together with the filling (just like rolling sushi ). Be prepared that the filling might spill out on the sides as it might still be a little too ‘watery’. Wipe away excess filling that has spilled out on the front and the sides of the cake.

6. Chill the cake in the fridge for about 2 hours, by then the strawberry filling should be hardened due to the gelatine.

7. Smear the outer cake with the cream-curd-mixture earlier on and use a fork to make some lines or some patterns on the cake. 8. Decorate the cake with the whipped cream and strawberries to your fancies!