Kaffee und Kuchen

I mentioned last week here about our first attempt at cheesecake and my plans to buy a proper springform pan. This weekend we had a few friends over for kaffee und kuchen (coffee and cake; more on this in a moment!) and we made cheesecake again, this time using the proper pan. It turned out even more delish and creamy than the last one. So, so good. And our friends loved it as well - and those Germans are not easy to please! We're probably going to experiment with more flavours now, but I'm so glad I can have my cheesecakes now because while Germans do great cakes, they just don't do good cheesecakes. And I think Umair and I make a good cheesecake team. :)

So what is kaffee und kuchen, you ask? Literally translated  it's coffee and cake. Kuchen = cake and initially I used to keep mixing the word with two other similar words; kochen and kuche.
kuchen = cake. kochen = cook. kuche = kitchen.

Anyway,  the k&k time is comparable to the English culture of tea time. Every afternoon between 2 and 4, Germans take a break from their daily activities, get together with friends, colleagues or family and have coffee and cake. Mostly, they meet at cafes, but you can also invite people to your place. Much like the Pakistani culture of 'chai' invites! These Germans really love their coffee and cake break. And yes, it doesn't matter whether your work space is piled up with things to do, you still take a break from it all and go have k&k! The German cakes are not very heavy or sweet and they don't use frosting on their cakes. There is a French Canadian couple who recently moved to Munich; and we also invited them over yesterday. They were just a tad bit confused wondering why we invited them specifically for 'coffee and cake'! ;) Once good weather rolls in, we'll be doing it more often in cafes hopefully. Speaking of good weather - seems like spring is here in Munich! Next week is supposed to be sunny with nice temperatures ranging from 9 degrees to 15 degrees! Today was a gorgeous Sunday with sun, very generously, smiling down at us; so we went out for a late breakfast and took a walk around English Gardens. It was buzzing with walkers and runners. Remember what I said in my last post about my new found love for being able to take walks everywhere? Well, more walk-time coming soon! 

Cheesecakes and chicken

If there's any dessert out there that I absolutely love and can never get tired of, it's a cheesecake. I don't have a big sweet tooth, in fact after a little something sweet, (yes that includes chocolates too) I am usually done. But cheesecake is the one thing I can never turn down! I have always wanted to try making them but never really got around to doing it. So this weekend, both Umair and I did just that. 

We had this recipe that we used, but with some adjustments. First of all, it was just a plain cheesecake that we wanted. I am not a huge fan of fruits on my cheesecakes! So there was no cranberry or glaze. For the cake, all the ingredients were the same minus the chocolate. I didn't really feel like chocolates in my cake.  For the crust, we substituted Leibnitz Vollkorn biscuits (German whole grain biscuits) for Graham Crackers because those are not available in Germany. Also, instead of using white chocolate, we used Lindt milk chocolate in the crust (which really enhanced the taste of the crust).

For first timers, I gotta say it turned out quite delish! The cake wasn't as high because we used a big baking dish instead of a springform pan. And we could've probably used more biscuits for the crust. But it was nice and moist and no cracking! We pretty much finished the entire thing in a day! Maybe time to buy a springform pan and start trying to make different kinds of cheesecakes?!

While we are at the topic of cooking and experimenting, we also experimented with chicken a little yesterday. Well, it was Umair's recipe. We can call it Minty Chicken with Peas for naming purposes. Basically, stir-fry chicken and peas with spices of your choice (we used: red chilli powder, salt, garlic and ginger powder, oregano and rosemary) and once chicken was almost done, Umair suggested throwing in yogurt mixed with mint chutney and sour cream and voila...yummy minty chicken! 

Apart from being a testing and trying recipes weekend, it was also the Oscar weekend! Actually, more so an Oscar Monday morning for me. Argo winning = complete awesomeness!! I have seen 5 out of the 9 nominated best movies (not seen: Amour, Lincoln, BotSW and Les Miserables) and was really rooting for Argo. It was a little baffling though that they did not nominate Ben Affleck for Best Director! I really want to see Amour. Also, Adele's performance was brilliant and so happy she won!