Alicia here taking over Lindsey's Renny's Recipes regularly scheduled post, and posting about a delicious dessert I have made.

This is my last German recipe post as part of my international meal planning posts. It has been so fun trying new foods, and it's made me excited to visit Germany one day.

Next month is Ecuador, and although we have posted a few Ecuadorian recipes on here before, these will be dinner recipes that you'll most definitely want to try. So stay tuned next week for that.

But back to today's dessert, Schwarzwälderkirschtorte, This means Black Forest Cherry Torte in Germany. Invented in the 1920's by a Josef Keller, this is a decadent cake with dark chocolate, sour cherries, and Kirsch (usually). Kirsch is a kind of cherry brandy, making the cake not suitable for children (usually).

If you've been following our blog awhile you may have noticed that we don't drink alcohol, so you can consider this recipe a ''dry'' Black Forest Cake. A delicious treat the whole family can enjoy. In place of the Kirsch, I used tart cherry juice. It was mixed with apple juice, but I soaked the cherries in the juice, which deepened the cherry flavor. I've linked to the juice I used.

This cake was soooooo good. My husband said it is worth the calories to have a piece. I must say that I agree. Plus it's got cherries, so that's fruit and all the antioxidants in the chocolate, I mean, can we really say this cake is all that unhealthy. ;)

If you want to make this cake be sure to plan accordingly. This is an all day, if not an overnight two day kind of cake. I think I took about 4-5 hours of active time working on the cake. So that's not including the cherries soaking for about 6 hours. If you want really deep flavors, allow the cherry juice to soak into the cake overnight before icing it on the outside.

Another issue I ran into was that I added too much liquid to my frosting for the filling. It was still delicious, but it did get a little runny and grainy. So add your cherry juice a little bit at a time in order to not have my same problem. It was good with the ratio I put in the recipe.

My final tip is to use your food processor (if you have one) to shave your chocolate. I tried doing it by hand on my cheese grater and it produced beautiful chocolate swirls, but also was really awkward and took forever. I put the grater blade (big side up) in my food processor, and it wasn't as beautiful but was so much easier and faster. In the center of my cake I used a dark chocolate bar cut into triangles to make an abstract kind of forest. I think it turned out pretty cute.

Dry Black Forest Cake

I loved this cake, I'm already thinking about when I should make it again. It was so good. I know you can't see from the pictures, but the special dark cocoa made the layers almost black. And the flavor was so deep and complex. I think it would be a great Valentine's Day dessert.

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    Pom poms are so fluffy and cute and super popular right now! If you are like me, you look at cute fluffy things and wonder what you can do with them to incorporate more cute fluffiness into you life.  Since I have two young granddaughters at my house right now, it has been the perfect time to do some pom pom crafting with them, especially since we are getting so close to Valentine's Day.
     To begin with, I taught them the fork method of making our own pom poms! They were so excited and it is an easy craft for them to do.  They did need help tying them tightly enough, but other than that, they were really good at it. If you haven't seen the fork method yourself, here is a quick video to teach you how! 
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     I found a heart shaped wreath form by accident at Dollar Tree.  (They also have round ones.)  I thought it would be perfect for a wreath for Valentine's Day, so I picked it up.  You can order them on line, so if you have a group crafting event coming, these would be great!  At first I thought about a floral wreath, but then I saw yarn and thought pom poms and the pom pom wreath idea was born.

      The girls and I started making pink, white and red pom poms.  The wreath really takes a lot of pom poms, but they go quickly and they are a lot of fun to do.  You can watch TV as you work.  I used a large serving fork to make large pom poms, the girls used regular dinner forks for smaller pom poms to act as filler.  

     My granddaughters and I had so much fun that we couldn't stop there! We picked up some inexpensive t-shirts for them and decided we could do something cute with pom poms on them. 

I've also seen ideas with sweaters using pom poms as polka dots, or in heart shapes. Here is a pom pom choker for just $4 right now at Lulus!  The ideas are endless! If you don't have time to make anything with them, just keep one in your pocket as a warm fuzzy whenever you feel it in there! These cute fuzzy things can't help but cheer you!  :) 
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This is my last German dinner post! Just to recap, each month I am choosing a country and then once a week cooking a meal from that country. January has been Germany. See my previous posts on this adventure here, here, and here!
 
It has been a very delicious and fun experiment so far. And as a bonus I have made a German dessert that I’ll be sharing with you on Thursday! I’m taking over Renny’s Recipes this week, so stay tuned.
 
Today’s dish is rinderrouladen and potato dumplings. Both of today’s recipes are from Germanfoods.org.

A rouladen is a roll-up and a rinderrouladen is a beef roll-up. It’s so good you guys and I didn’t even make it right (I think)! I really was trying to make an original recipe for you here but I feel like it still needs perfecting. As such, I will just link you to one of the base recipes I used and tell you my tips for it. Hopefully in the future I can update this with the recipe. (Because I will be making this again.) It was so delicious!
 
It’s a really thin cut of beef round or chuck. I used bottom round and chuck to try them both. Then rolled up inside is bacon or ham, caramelized onions, and a pickle.  Then it's braised in beef stock for about an hour. I couldn't tell the difference between the two different cuts of meat.

Here are my tips:

• Find a butcher to cut your meat really thin. Most recipes I saw called for between 1/16” and 1/8” thick. I feel like the thinner the better. My meat was closer to 1/8” and I felt the rouladen was bulkier than it should have been. I did try to flatten it a bit more, but I don’t have a meat mallet so I used the back of my metal ice cream scoop. It worked ok. But this brings me to my next point.
• Have “rectangular” shapes about 4’’ x 6-8’’. None of the recipes told me which way to put the filling and roll it up. But you need to be able to tuck the ends in to make a of pocket of meat. So I think it might be easier to put the stuffing in long-ways and roll it up. I dis it short ways and the roulade was very fat.
• Use bakers twine to tie it up. It will be so much easier. You may also want to use some toothpicks in the ends to help tuck them. I didn’t have string or toothpicks. I use giant skewers that I broke in half and weaved through the rouladen to try to hold it together and close the ends. While it worked it didn’t keep them tightly packed so they came out pretty big. (Big and DELICIOUS!)
• Add some grainy mustard before you put the bacon on. It takes the flavor to the next level. Trust me. It’s so good.
• Use a pickle even if you don’t like pickles. My husband hates pickles but actually liked it in the rouladen. Make at least one with a pickle and try it. (I did half with and half without and the pickle and mustard combo was my favorite).
• Judge how many onions you think you'll use. I most definitely did not use 2 whole onions. I used more like half of one onion, but if you roll it the other way you might fit more. Try it!
  

This could be a great thing to make for a special occasion, like Valentine’s Day at home, a birthday, or anniversary.. The meat can be kind of expensive so it’s not an everyday meal.

I have never in my life made dumplings, nor watched anyone make them. And though I have had these before and really liked them, mine turned out like weird mashed potatoes with toast stuffed inside. Also mine came out huge and only half the batch came out of the water in tact. I think watching a video of someone making these would have been beneficial for me.
 
Don’t get me wrong they were still good with the gravy, but I wished I had just made mashed potatoes. I’m calling it user error. I didn’t use the recipe I’m linking too, but I wish I had because it seems more detailed in the instructions.
 
Because I need to practice these more I have no tips for you. But if you try them let me know how they turn out. I found a mix for them on Amazon that I might have to try.

Have you tried any of the German recipes yet? Stay tuned for a German dessert on Thursday!

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     As a grandmother of 9, going on 10 grandchildren (hurray!), I like to do little things for my grandchildren that help add a little magic to their lives and to just show my love in little ways.  Last year, I was a little more elaborate and I made the girls owl purses and the boys some patchwork snakes.  This year, because my house is so full of people for a couple of months, I am planning on something a little less elaborate, but still sweet and fun that I know my grandchildren will enjoy. 
      This plan of mine called for a trip to Dollar Tree to get some ideas.  It was a lot of fun.  Look what I found! (Most are linked for your convenience!)

    There are so many cute little sayings that could go with these little favors.  I chose 3. 

  Here are the pdfs for them so that you can print them off.  Just click a button. Then be sure to choose 3.5 x 5 paper.  I just printed them on 3.5 x 5 cards.  Do not click fit to page.

     There are a lot of cute ways to package these cute Valentines.  You could use these cute pink bags from Dollar Tree and tie them with ribbon. 

    Because 3 of my grandchildren are in school and will come home with lots of Valentines, I think it is nice to do these little Valentines for the little ones still at home so that they don't feel left out! It is a fun way to teach them to do kind things for others. I think the Blow Me Away Valentine would be great for a classroom party.  (Perhaps leave out the gum!) 

We will be back this week with more fun Valentine ideas! Be sure to check back!  In the meantime, check out some of our past Valentine's Day posts!