The highlight of every German birthday party, the classig Keks Kuchen, or Cookie Cake. The problems in producing it over here were 2 of the main ingredients, the Palmin, and the Cookies. I finally found both. The Palmin is a very hard coconut oil, and using the coconut oil we can get here and making one alteration to the recipe takes care of that problem.
The cookies were quite another story. I found these at Honk's and bought 3 packages. But that is not a reliable source, since they buy bulk items and you get the luck of the draw. So if you can't find these, use anything like them, or in a pinch, use clubcrackers and leave out the pinch of salt. It should work. (One issue of this recipe however is, that it contains raw eggs, three of them in fact, so, if that is a problem, this cake is not for you. Otherwise, generations of Germans have enjoyed it, and it hasn't killed me... so far)
So, here is the Recipe:
So, here is the Recipe:German Cookie Cake Ingredients
About 54 tea biscuits
7 oz (200gr) coconut oil, melted and cooled
14 T (200gr) sugar3 T Cocoa
3 T Nesquick chocolate drink powder
1 cup ganache (about 1/3c heavy cream with 1c semisweet chocolate chips, melted together in the microwave (2min) and stirred until smooth, slightly cooled)
a pinch of salt (leave that out if you are using club crackers)
3 eggs
Directions:
Prepare ganache in the microwave, melt the coconut oil on low on the stove.
Cream the eggs and the sugar until light and creamy. Add the cocoa , salt and Nesquick. Slowly pour the melted coconut oil into mixture, in a fine stream, while beating, then add the ganache in the same way.
Line a loaf pan with plastic wrap. Have the plastic wrap piece big enough to have some hang over the sides. Now spread some of the chocolate filling in the bottom, covering it well (this will be the top of your cake, so don't be stingy, you don't want to have cookies poking thru). 3-4 T of the filling should do.
Next layer in the cookies. Cut them to fit.
Alternate filling and cookies, making sure you cover the entire layer each time.
The next layer would be cookies
Your last layer should be cookies.
Now fold the plastic wrap over the cookies and refrigerate over night. To get the cake out of the pan , if it doesn't come willingly, dip the pan briefly in hot water. Invert it onto a long serving platter, peel the plastic wrap off and smooth the chocolate to cover any cookies that might poke out. I had made way too much ganache, and melted my leftovers and used that to cover any unruely cookies. 
The cake tastes best if you let it sit a day or so, because then the cookies get a bit softer. But who can possibly resist this and not cut into it right away?
Oh my goodness! I am 8 again! If I close my eyes, I am back in my mom's kitchen, reliving a cherished moment of my childhood.
1 comment:
Thanks for posting the step by step recipe! I grew up with the German Kekskuchen and ever since I moved to the States and have had kids myself, I wanted to replicate the recipe.
I do have a slightly different recipe from my mother (asking for Palmin = solid coconut fat) but couldn't get my hands on the product here in California. Last time I tried it, I discovered that Crisco = vegetable shortening does NOT work in replacement of the coconut oil.
Today the big surprise: Our local Safeway in Berkeley, CA carries refined organic coconut oil (by Spectrum; $9.95)!!!
Well, it is the year 2013 ... so things might have changed since when you posted the recipe online. It was also no problem to get the Leibniz butter cookies at Safeway as well. I just took the finished cake out of the fridge and ... IT IS DELICIOUS!!!
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