Coconut Loaf Cake

I have been trying several coconut cakes in the past, and while most were pretty good, I never found the perfect one - until now. This is a very simple "Rührkuchen" (similar to a pound cake) that is moist, has a great crust and an amazing coconut taste.

The picture did not turn out too good, and definitely does not do the cake justice. 

I do believe most of the great taste is due to the coconut greek yoghurt I used, but it could also just be the right combination of butter, flour, sugar and coconut. Baking this cake was a bit of a "let's see what we have and mix it all together" thing. For example I ran out of regular sugar and ended up using about 1/2 cup powdered sugar, and the triple sec has been standing in our kitchen for a while and I simply decided I need to start using our alcohol that no one drinks. With all the powdered sugar I was not sure about using all sweetened coconut, so I used a mix of sweetened and unsweetened. Here is the recipe:

• 1/2 cup butter

• 1 cup sugar (used half regular, half powdered)

• 3 eggs

• 1 cup flour

• 1/2 cup corn starch

• 1 cup shredded coconut (half sweetened, half unsweetened)

• 150g coconut greek yoghurt (=1/2cup)

• dash of salt, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder

• generous dash of triple sec (~2 tbsp?)

Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for ~60 min.

Light Wind Freestyle with Air

During our Hatteras vacation in October I got to try an inflatable, sailable SUP. Peter and I took it out on a nice light wind day to see how it would feel compared to our regular light wind boards. The idea of an inflatable sounds awesome - it saves a ton of space compared to our regular SUPs and in my case would probably replace my SUP and the Bic Nova. So we took the opportunity to try the 10'4 Fanatic Fly Air for some light wind freestyle. Here is a video recorded with a mast mount:

Very quickly after starting to sail I removed the fin - which made everything feel so much better for light wind freestyle. The fin had been collecting lots of weeds, and since the boards has two small, permanently attached, side fins, you do not really need the center fin for the light wind tricks and spins. The inflatable did have a bit of a bouncy feel to it which made jumping up and down on it a ton of fun, but needs some getting-used-to when taking big steps on the board. It felt a lot more stable and less spinny than my 170l Bic Nova. This made any moves relying on the board keeping direction easier than they would be on my short Nova, but moves that turn the board took a bit longer. Peter felt like the mast mount was a bit too far forward for his sailing, and the nose did dip in the water frequently when he sailed.
Overall it was a lot of fun to sail, and I think this could be used for light wind sailing, flat water SUP'ing, and even for catching some small waves. Now if the inflatable SUP's only had some system for the inserts that allowed rail rides without having to worry about damaging the SUP... Considering the current insert, we did not deem it save and refrained from trying rail rides on it.

Special thanks to Brian and Ocean Air Sports who made it possible for me to try the SUP! I love that we still have windsurfing stores where you can try the gear you are interested in!

Halloween Sailing on OBX

Usually it is windy on Halloween. This year we were supposed to leave the Outer Banks (OBX) on October 29, but the wind forecast looked to good for Oct 31 to leave just yet, so we stayed for a couple more days. The wind came not quite as strong as promised but stayed the whole day. I sailed pretty much the whole day with a long lunch break. In the morning I took out the video camera to get some footage of me sailing. The goal was to finally get a Flaka, and the first try of the day was the best one all morning. Enjoy the video:

The Great White of Cape Cod

We do have some great white sharks here on the Cape, but I am talking about our windsurfing van. It is a white, high roof van, therefore titled the "Great White". Recently my mom mentioned that in such a big van, we should be able to sleep inside on a mattress during our longer trips. Since it is hard to explain and even harder to imagine our van stuffed full of windsurfing gear if you have never seen it, I decided to post some pictures to offer some insight. Here are a few of our fully packed van for one of our Hatteras trips:

View of our packed van from the back - pretty full, right?

And from the side - not sure where a mattress would find space...

So, as you can see, there is definitely no space for sleeping except on the front seat. But if you think about what we managed to put in there, Peter did a pretty good job of packing. In the pictures above we have 2 longboards on top of the van, and all of this inside: 9 boards, 6 booms, ~ 20 sails, ~10 masts, an inflatable boat, an inflatable kajak, a motor for the boat, a gas canister for the boat, 3 suitcases, 2 beach chairs, 3 big shopping bags full of wetsuits and booties (yes, those are mine!), 2 plastic boxes full of absolutely necessary windsurfing stuff, and lots of other small items like the pumps to inflate the boat, harnesses, fins, etc. - oh, and a ladder to get the boards on and off the roof of the van! And I probably forgot to mention lots of the things inside the van, but as everyone knows great whites are pretty big...

T-Shirt Pillowcases

Usually we have a few left over t-shirts after our windsurfing festival each fall. Not wanting to throw them out, but also not interested in having 5 of each, I came up with the idea to repurpose them as pillowcases:

The dark green one was made with the shirt from our very first East Coast Windsurfing Festival here on Cape Cod, the red one was this year's t-shirt. I really like my zippered pillowcases, they remind me of our windsurfing events and are easily washable. Making them was not that hard - you can find tutorials for everything online these days. It was however the first time I have sewn a zipper into anything, but after making my own bikini tops this was rather easy. Also I do need lots of sewing practice since I am currently looking into acquiring an industrial sewing machine for windsurfing sail repairs. Who knows, if we have a non windy weekend I might just start on a quilt next...

Remembering Smarties

Recently I picked up some candy coated chocolate drops while shopping. They reminded me very strongly of "Smarties", a popular children's candy in Germany.

One morning, after having had the candy lying in our kitchen for a few days, I woke up with a strong urge to bake a marble cake and decorate it with the candy. Checking in with my Mom confirmed my suspicion that we used to do this when I was little. I do not have a proper cake pan for the marble cake as I remember it, so it was baked in a bread pan. There was also some experimenting with the chocolate coating, which was needed to make the Smarties stick to the cake. I have been trying to get a tasty and functional chocolate coating for a while, but have not figured out the correct mix of chocolate and fat yet. For the record: 2 tablespoons of coconut oil and 100g 70% chocolate is too thin. I still managed to make the smarties stick to the cake, but the cake could not be touched (and eaten) for the rest of the day on which it was made, to allow the coating to dry somewhat.

Marble cake decorated with candy coated chocolate drops

Almost Healthy

Over the last few weeks I have been baking two things that would probably fall in the "healthy" category: Apfelkuchen & carrot muffins.

Apfelkuchen vom Blech

Carrot Muffins

The carrot muffins were based on a recipe from another food blog called "COOKIE + kate", and can be found here. I did like how the muffins turned out, but thought they missed something. I am not quite sure what, but if I ever make them again I will either add some unsweetened coconut flakes and maybe some lemon or orange juice.

The Apfelkuchen (yeast cake with apples) was delicious, as was expected because it is based on a recipe from my mom. However this cake really needs to be eaten within 2 days and tastes best fresh out of the oven. The recipe is quite simple, the cake consisting of a slightly sweet yeast dough, topped with cinnamon-sugar covered apples, and a mix of ground nuts, cream, egg, raisins, and the rest of the cinnamon-sugar left over from sprinkling the apples.