Vegan Bibi & Tina Cake (Hazelnut Cake with Cherries and Chocolate Cream)
You probably already know our vegan birthday sponge cake with strawberry cream. It always makes us reminisce about our childhood, because in Germany the so called "Benjamin Blümchen Torte" is a cake many children get for their birthday.
Today, however, it's not about the famous cartoon elephant Benjamin Blümchen, but about Benjamin's dear friends from Martinshof: Bibi and Tina! Now you can feel really old, because Bibi & Tina are celebrating their 30th anniversary!
As well as Benjamin Blümchen, we love the two since our childhood. We listened to the cassettes to fall asleep, to wake up, during long car rides or together with friends. And let's be honest: We haven't stopped listening to them until today. That's why we are even more excited to create a cake for their birthday party! The motto of the 30th anniversary of Bibi & Tina is "Together strong- For the environment and animals"! So the focus of the anniversary is on sustainability, which we think is really great! Suitably, they have also started a blog, where you can find lots of useful informations and tips about the conservation of nature, waste separation and co.
For the composition of the cake we were inspired by Bibi, Tina, Amadeus and Sabrina. You'll definitely need some time and patience for this cake, but you only turn 30 once, right? We have a few tips and tricks for you, to make sure the cake turns out awesome the first time.
Bottoms: We recommend to bake the sponge cake base and the shortcrust pastry a day in advance, so they really have enough time to cool. If you don't have a 18 cm springform pan, you can of course use another size. Just make sure to adjust the baking times. It's also important to test the cake with chopsticks. It can easily happen that the dough in the middle is not yet baked through, while the edges are already brown. In this case, cover the dough with aluminum foil so it doesn't burn. The hazelnuts can be replaced by any other nuts. However, if you don't like nuts at all, feel free to stick to our standard biuskuit recipe.
Creams: The creams should also be prepared one day in advance, so they can set properly in the refrigerator overnight and get really cold and firm. To thicken the chocolate cream, we boiled up agartine for 2 minutes and stirred it into the cream. The agartine we used contains 30% agar agar. Make sure you find an agartine with a similar content so the cream doesn't get too soft or too firm.
Decoration: For the decoration, we used two figurines from Bibi & Tina that we ordered here. Considering that Bibi & Tina spend a lot of time in nature, we used fondant to form small trees and even small carrots. We imitated grass with green edible paper. Additionally we' ve sprayed the cake with a golden spray and decorated it with a self-made pennant chain, since a little glitter should not be missing at a festive anniversary. But of course you can let your creativity run free with this cake and design it according to your wishes.
Vegan Bibi & Tina Cake (Hazelnut Cake with Cherries and Chocolate Cream)
Ingredients
For the shortcrust pastry:
- 75 g (0.66 cup) wheat flour type 405
- 25 g (1.5 tbsp) sugar
- 50 g (0.5 stick) vegan butter (cold)
- cold water as needed
For the sponge cake layers:
- 400 g (3.25 cups) flour type 405
- 120 g (7 oz) ground hazelnuts
- 200 g (1 cup) sugar
- 12 g (1 tbsp) baking powder
- 12 g (2 tsp) vanilla sugar
- 500 ml (2 cups) sparkling water
- 100 ml (0.5 cup) vegetable oil (canola or sunflower oil)
For the vegan chocolate curd:
- 400 g (400 oz) plant-based curd
- 35 g (0.25 cups) icing sugar
- 50 ml (0.25 cups) water
- 15 g (0.5 oz) agartine (30 % agar-agar)
- 20 g (0.75 oz) cocoa powder
For the vegan vanilla cream:
- 200 ml (0.75 cups) plant-based cream for whipping
- 1 vanilla pod
- 8 g (1.5 tsp) vanilla sugar
- 8 g (2 tsp) cream stiffener
- 25 g (0.25 cup) icing sugar sugar
For the cherry layer:
- 360 g (12.75 oz) morello cherries in a jar
For the decoration:
- green and orange fondant
- green edible paper sprinkles
- golden decoration powder
- Bibi & Tina figures
Also:
- vegan butter for greasing
- flour for patting the springform pan
Instructions
Dough bases
For the shortcrust pastry, mix wheat flour and sugar in a bowl. Add cold vegan butter in flakes and work it into the flour mixture with cold hands until a streusel-like dough forms. Add as much cold water as needed until a smooth dough forms. Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
While the shortcrust dough is resting in the refrigerator, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F (convection oven) and prepare the sponge dough. Start with mixing flour, ground hazelnuts, sugar, baking powder and vanilla sugar in a bowl. Then add sparkling water and vegetable oil and stir in just briefly. Grease a springform pan (18 cm diameter) with vegan butter, pat out with flour and pour in the shortcrust dough. Bake for about 45 minutes. Use a chopstick to test if the dough is cooked through: Poke a wooden chopstick into the dough at one angle and pull it out. Ones no more dough sticks to it, the cake is done. If the cake gets too dark during baking, cover it with tin foil. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool completely.
Increase the oven temperature to 200°C/390 F. Grease a second cake pan (18 cm diameter) with vegan butter and pat it out with some flour. Take the shortcrust pastry out of the fridge and roll it out until it fits exactly into the mold. Then transfer the dough into the cake pan and prick it with a fork about ten times so it doesn't bubble during baking. Bake for about 25 minutes until lightly browned. Then let the dough cool as well.
Vegan Chocolate Curd
Mix plant-based curd and icing sugar in a bowl until smooth.
Bring the water to a boil in a medium saucepan and whisk in the agartine. Simmer the mixture for 2 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent lumps from forming.
Add the vegan curd mixture to the agartine mixture one tablespoon at a time, always stiring so everything is well blended. If you add the curd too quickly, the agartine may cool too quickly and clump - we want to avoid that, of course. In the end, all the vegan curd should be in the pot. Refrigerate afterwards.
Vegan vanilla cream
- Pour plant-based whipping cream in a tall container. Cut the vanilla bean in half and scrape out the pith with the back of a knife and add to the vegan cream. Whip with a hand mixer while adding vanilla sugar, cream stiffener and icing sugar until the vegan vanilla cream is stiff. Then place in the refrigerator.
Cherry layer
- Drain the morello cherries and transfer them in a tall container. Blend with a hand blender so there are no large chunks left, but the mixture is not completely liquid either. Refrigerate the cherry puree as well.
Assemble the cake
Straighten the top of the cooled sponge cake dough with a cake knife or a cake cutter so no "dome" is left. Then cut the bottom horizontally into three equal layers. Pour the vegan vanilla cream into a piping bag.
Transfer the short pastry on a cake plate. Place the first of the three sponge cake layers on top. Pipe the vegan vanilla cream on the outer edge as a kind of ring on the sponge cake base. Pour half of the cherry puree onto the free center of the ring and smooth it out. Spread half of the chocolate curd on top. Now carefully place the second sponge cake base on top and repeat the steps with vanilla cream, cherry puree and chocolate quark. Finally, place the third sponge cake base on top and spread the remaining vanilla cream around the cake.
Tip: To prevent the filling from oozing out, we put a "cream ring" on the edge of the bases. This keeps the outside of the cake nice and white, even if some cream is squeezed out.
- Form small trees and carrots from the orange and green fondant. Spray the sides of the cake with golden decorative powder. Spread the green edible paper sprinkles as grass on the top of the cake and decorate with the trees, carrots and Bibi & Tina characters. Serve the cake immediately or let it chill again for approx. 1-2 hours.
