Weekend Cooking: James Rizzi and the art of baking
As you know I love cookies. The other day I discovered this cookie book in the library. I am sure you have heard of James Rizzi; Peter Bührer is a Swiss chef who has already created a few cookbooks together with Rizzi. It seems that this is a German book, it is available on amazon.com, but only at an horrendous price and, I think, in German.
“American cookies and more” is a nice combination of delicious 
recipes and art. Each page is embellished with Rizzi’s art, an absolute pleasure to look at. 
The recipes vary from muffins, brownies and pancakes & pies to cakes and a number of Christmas cookies. They are not very difficult and usually consist of four or five steps only.
I will share the recipe for chocolate cake with you, not the most original cake, admittedly, but I can vouch for it, since I tried it already. It is rich and delicious. I translated the recipe into English, so forgive me for any awkward terms that an English speaker wouldn’t use when talking about baking.
Chocolate Cake
- 250g soft butter
- pinch of salt
- 200g sugar
- 6 eggs
- 500g flour
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 packet of baking powder
- 150g unsweetened cocoa powder
- 200ml milk
- 1/2 bottle of bitter almond oil (these are tiny, tiny bottles)
- grease for the baking form
- 50g almond flakes
- icing sugar to dust the cake
1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade. Grease the form, sprinkle it with almond flakes and distribute evenly.
2. Beat butter with salt and sugar until frothy. Add eggs one at a time. Mix flour with cocoa, cinnamon and baking powder. Mix milk with bitter almond oil. Add some of the flour mixture and some of the milk mixture to the butter mixture alternating between both. The dough should be heavy and sticky.
3. Fill dough into form. Bake for about 1 hour in the middle of the oven. If it gets too dark at the top, cover with aluminum foil.
4. Leave cake in the form for about 10 minutes, turn it out and leave on a cooling rack. Dust with icing sugar before serving.
American Cookies and more
Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads
that sounds pretty original to me, with the cinnamon, almond oil and almonds.
it also sounds delicious!
.-= caite@a lovely shore breeze´s last blog ..Weekend CookingSandwich Saturday =-.
I’m with Caite… that sounds very original to me, too. Great illustrations in the cookbook!
.-= JoAnn´s last blog ..Audiobook Week- My Favorites =-.
I love to read cookbooks but one with art work in it a special treat. Your cake recipe sounds delicious, a great combination of flavors. Thanks for sharing.
.-= Margot´s last blog ..Come and See My Garden =-.
The book looks so cute — I love the illustrations. And the recipe with almond oil in it sounds heavenly.
.-= Beth F´s last blog ..Audiobook Week: Quick Meme =-.
That’s one funky cookbook! The cake sounds delicious too!
.-= Chrisbookarama´s last blog ..Locavore by Sarah Elton- Review =-.
That cookbook sure does look like fun! and almonds + chocolate = awesome!
That looks like a really nice cook book! I’m tempted to make the cake, but there is no occasion… End of school year, maybe? My sons finish Tuesday with a musical that they’ve been working on for months. Then it’s goodbye teachers, and they move on to secondary school.
Leeswammes (Judith)’s last post ..Another International Book Bloggers’ Event-
I like any cake recipe that doesn’t require separating the eggs and beating the whites.
My weekend cooking project didn’t work as well.
Rose City Reader’s last post ..Cookbook Library- Martha Stewarts Hors dOeuvres Handbook
What a fun cookbook-here is my post. http://chocolateandcroissants.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html#123210841722504125
Esme’s last post ..Summertime