Buttermilk-Cinnamon Coffeecake

Readers, my mojo is off. I don't know how it happened, or how to get it back. But the mojo is askew. Possibly even temporarily missing in action. Is it the recipes I'm choosing? The German version of all the ingredients? The anticipation of the delivery of all my earthly possessions to my mother's apartment early Thursday morning and the fact that I still don't have a place of my own? I don't know, but it's bugging me. Deeply.

Spaghetti with tomato sauce I've got down. Salads, they are coming out of my ears! Cheese sandwiches, liverwurst toasts, I don't have any problems with either of those. Oh, and I've been doing some amazing things with rice lately. But newspaper recipes are shaping up to be my challenge of the week.

The universe seemed to be giving me a little gift when the editors at the Los Angeles Times threw open the doors onto a small sliver of their recipe vaults. Oooh, I clicked away, bookmarking a new collection of things to try. Georgian cheese bread! Calamari stew! A crazy-hideous Indian chicken in mango sauce! And a buttermilk coffeecake that just screamed to be made and brought to a Kaffeeklatsch I went to on Saturday afternoon.

(Well, they didn't call it that, no.)

I know from other Americans in Berlin that it's not an easy thing to simply make American baking recipes with German ingredients. The flour is different, the leaveners aren't exactly the same, and brown sugar, the squidgy, fudgy American kind, doesn't even exist here. Our light, fluffy cakes tend to result in somewhat leaden, dry specimens. Still, I thought, rather cockily, a simple, spiced buttermilk cake? I can do that.

Hrmph. Note to self: on next trip to the US, buy brown sugar. Also, some humility.

For this cake, you make a dryish dough that seems all wrong, then separate out some of it to be mixed with sliced almonds and more spices. This ends up a streusel topping of sorts. The rest of the dough is mixed with buttermilk and oil and egg, turning it into a buff-colored batter. That batter is poured into a buttered baking dish, then strewn with the almond streusel and baked until golden brown and fragrant and puffed, just as any good coffeecake should be.

Is there anything lovelier than a house filling with the scent of sweet baking? It's awfully reassuring, I find. Mixing together ingredients in a strange country, in a strange kitchen, baking them in a strange oven, then finding the fragrance just as it should be made me feel supremely capable at a moment in my life when I feel like most of what lies before me is out of my control. That was rather nice.

The cake baked up fine - from a flat little puddle into a nicely mounding cake, splintered and studded with almond slices and pockets of streusel. But it baked far faster than the recipe said (the conversion of Fahrenheit to gas marks is an inexact science and one I'm still trying to master as long as I'm without an oven thermometer), and once we tried to cut cooled pieces out of the pan, we realized the cake had fused rather maddeningly to the pan. I hate it when that happens.

Using granulated brown cane sugar instead of American brown sugar left the cake too dry and sweet and coarse-grained. It wasn't awful, especially when dolloped with a generous amount of freshly whipped cream to balance the sweetness (essential, this is, I can't stress it enough). And the men at the gathering were darling, eating great big pieces of it and murmuring approvingly. But I think they were just taking pity on me. I wouldn't make it again.

So here's my question. Or, rather, questions. Am I just being grumpy? Should I quit making American recipes with German ingredients? Should I be spending more time studying the different chemical compounds of German leaveners versus American ones? In my move from the US to Berlin, did I go from being a good cook to a mediocre one? Am I being a total drama queen? Should I give myself a break and just buy myself a piece of cake the next time I need it? Any thoughts you might have, especially from readers who live in Europe and regularly bake and cook American recipes, would be greatly appreciated.

Cinnamon-Buttermilk Coffeecake
Makes 8 to 12 servings

2 1/4 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 cup corn oil
1 cup sliced almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk

1. Mix flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, salt and ginger. Blend in oil until smooth. Remove 3/4 cup mixture and combine with almonds and remaining 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Mix and set aside.

2. To remaining flour mixture, add baking powder, baking soda, egg and buttermilk. Blend until smooth. Pour into buttered 13x9-inch baking pan. Sprinkle reserved nut mixture evenly over surface of batter. Bake at 350 degrees 35 to 40 minutes. Place pan on wire rack to cool. Cut into squares to serve.

Comments

[Lisa (dinner party)]

More German recipes! I, for one, would love to read about them. But pretty much anything you write about is interesting, even a not-so-perfect cake.

[david]

Natural food's stores often sell moist brown sugar, which is a pretty good swap. Also Belgians use sucre vergoise, which we get in France. Perhaps you can find in Germany. Because there's no reason that anyone should go without cake.

[Luisa]

Lisa - you are a doll. I'm saving most of the German recipes I try for the book... :)

David - in the meantime, I found a moist-ish muscovado-like sugar (for 5 euros! it's fair trade, I think) that's a lot dryer than the US stuff, but wetter than all the German sugars. Used it for a Thai dish, will try it next in chocolate chip cookies, I think. I'll keep my eyes open for the sucre vergoise, thank you!

[Maggie]

Oh, was wondering how you are doing. I have a feeling you'll get your mojo back when you get settled in your own place. Which will happen, even if it seems like it's taking forever.

[julianne rose]

i've never commented here, but MUST pipe up on this one: i'm american, with a berliner boyfriend, so split my time between the 2 places. i'm making the full leap to moving to berlin myself in april, and have felt such empathy with you recently, as i'll too be leaving the lovely home that is new york city... :( i'll miss fairway most of all i'm certain.

i have no help for you, in fact i was going to email you sometime and ask you what your own tips are for food shopping in berlin - i have the absolute hardest time with the baking aisles at aldi, lidl, kaiser's... ah i find them just totally unsuited to american baked recipes. no extracts at all! bah - it's something i'm already dreading! so i'm sorry i have no tips, but know that there's another new yorker who shares the uttermost empathy with you :)

thanks for such a beautiful blog!

[Aricka]

I was wondering how you were doing! It had been a while since your last post. Hang in there. Once you get your own place you will feel back to your old self. Send more German recipes. Loved the last one!

[Catherine]

So I had the brown sugar problem when I lived in Norway. What you need to do is bring back molasses, and then mix it with white sugar to make brown sugar. 2T molasses +1c white sugar=1 c brown sugar. Much more space efficient than bringing back tons of brown sugar. Good luck!

[Austrianinchicago.blogspot.com]

I have had the opposite problem moving from Europe to the US.

Maybe this cookbook will help - I used to make all kinds of American baked goods from this cook book (when I was still living in Europe) and everything turned out great - even my American husband loved it:

http://www.amazon.de/American-Cookies-Karlene-T-Stecher/dp/3806819408/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263918301&sr=8-3

It's just typically American recipes like brownies, coffee cakes, carrot cakes and muffins but it's adapted for the German/Austrian market so you might like it.

[TheKitchenWitch]

Luisa, I think you've hit the nail on the head! Just serve EVERYTHING "mit shlag!" Indecent amounts of shlag!

Joking aside, I like in the Rocky Mountains, and baking is a tenuous practice at best. I never know *what* kind of finished product I'm going to pull out of the oven...

And now I'm intrigued about the hideous Indian mango chicken recipe!

[Barbara J. Isenberg]

Ah, you poor dear. I have been living in Turkey for almost three years now and am still struggling with measurement equivalents and finding the right ingredients. Don't despair; you haven't been in Germany that long and you have not yet seen what the country has to offer in terms of substitutions for your American recipes.

I've learned a few tricks while I've been here in Turkey. As there is no pure vanilla extract here, I make my own with vodka and vanilla beans. I have friends bring me brown sugar and maple syrup, which I also can't get here. I sift powdered sugar again and again and again and again to get it to the right consistency for frosting because the stuff here is so coarse.

I am about to experiment with combining regular white sugar with pekmez, grape syrup, to see if it turns into some semblance of brown sugar.

All of this is to say, Luisa, to give it some time. You're a great cook, and with time you will learn how to tweak German ingredients to get the right effect. It will be a lot of trial and error, believe me, but it will also make for some great blog posts!

[wendy]

stick with it. Find European recipes you like as well. I am an American who only JUST moved back to North America after 8 years in Europe and I am having difficulty coming to terms with NOT have to re-adjust things (funny - our move pretty much coincided with yours, so reading your blog at that time was like our life, but in reverse!).

You could make your own brown sugar! Alton Brown from the Food Network had a clip about it and my husband always makes his own now. Of course, my husband would do anything Alton told him to....

[Ali]

As an American living in Berlin, I definitely noticed the brown sugar issue immediately. I am happy to report that I have found a pretty good version that exists in Asian stores. The brand is Wang Kanai and is called "Natural Brown Sugar". It is actually a pretty good likeness and it is generally only around 1,50 euros.

For other issues of this kind, check out:
http://www.amiexpat.com/2007/05/31/american-foodstuff-substitutes/

Good luck!
Ali

[Sarah]

Luisa, I am sorry I have no specific tips for you but I just had to pipe up and say that I think Barbara (above) is right. Just keep trying, and experimenting with different strategies, and one day you will just know how to make it work. I feel certain that it will happen all at once, like magic. You have just moved your whole life over an ocean! Maybe mojo just travels on a slower boat.

[Tracy (Amuse-bouche for Two)]

Everyone has a bad day in the kitchen. Just keep on keepin on.

[Marguerite]

I second Ali, you can find lyle's brown sugar in asian food stores (specifically the one at wittenbergplatz). Tastewise swapping in one tsp of sugar with one good tsp of grafschafter goldsaft (krautrübensirup) does the trick nicely!

[Katherine]

Never fear, Luisa! You'll figure it out. Another American living in Berlin here, and after over two years I've finally gotten most of my baking kinks worked out.

Flour: I've had most success with substituting 550 for all purpose. I've heard of some people mixing 450 and 550, but I'm lazy and have found that 550 works pretty well on its own. Side note: I've had pretty good results using 550 for Lahey's no-knead bread recipe. Even better results swapping out half for 1050.

Brown Sugar: Ditto Ali's recommendation above on Asian markets. The brand I see and use most often is Tate & Lyle, and I can usually find both light and dark T&L in well-stocked Asian markets (like the big one across from the S-Bahn at Alexanderplatz). Tate & Lyle retails for around 2.70 there, I think

Baking Soda/Baking Powder: After a couple of bad experiences early on trying German leaveners in American recipes, I decided to stick with American brands. You can find Arm & Hammer easily at Karstadt or KaDeWe. American baking powder, on the other hand, I haven't been able to find here, so my parents just have to send me Rumsford care packages from time to time.

Vanilla Extract: Exorbitantly expensive here. Like one of the commenters above, I make my own using vanilla beans and vodka - I think Clotilde has a recipe as well. A good tip: the spice vendor at the Turkish market at Maybachufer has a good deal on vanilla beans. Including the bottle of vodka and all the beans, I made a liter(!) of extract for around 15 euro.

And don't forget that German butter has more butterfat and less water than American butter, which in my experience can sometimes mess with a recipe if you don't adjust for it.

I hope this helps! Welcome back to Berlin!

[Corrie]

I'm German and I cooked/baked a lot of American recipes during the last year. They all turned out fine (although I have nothing to compare with), so I doubt it's the ingredients' fault. Maybe it's just this cake recipe that sucks. Just go on, and if you need any shopping advice, feel free to contact me.

[laura]

Yes, this is one of the (many?) frustrating parts of being an American abroad. I've been in Italy forever, and share many of the experiences of the other expats here. My best tips:

--make up a conversion cheat sheet and post it in your kitchen. I hide basic ingredient volume to grams conversions (1 cup sugar = x grams) posted inside my cupboards where the ingredients are.

--there's no hope, bring your own from US: chocolate chips, pecans, baking powder, vanilla extract, buttermilk powder, dried cranberries/cherries/etc. among others.

--learn the characteristics of what IS available: which flour is lowest/highest protein; hard grain/soft grain. what chemicals are in the leavening, how do they work/taste differently.

and have fun. you'll learn more than you imagined.

[Hazel]

Germany and England aren't the same...my usual issue translating American ingredients here is to do with measurement more than anything else...there are a few things I can't get, but it's generally pretty easy to sub. Application of common sense when thinking about flour etc and a pool of knowledge makes it all ok in the end though.

...I would say your biggest challenge in a recipe like this would be to do with the gas oven. I had one for about 6 months in a house I was in and it more or less totally curtailed my baking. It was impossible to get a properly even heat. The heat source was in a stupid place - right along the bottom of the oven in the middle - so it burned everything too...I couldn't get away from it. An oven thermometer was a must, as were many many layers of baking trays between the heat source and the cake tin... Keep at it!

[Dawn (KitchenTravels)]

Maybe we're just in a bad moon phase for baking/cooking? I'd never tried Japanese sweet potatoes before, and yesterday morning I was giddy with excitement as they roasted in the oven. Until I realized that I forgot to turn on the timer, and burned the whole batch. :(

I say: try, try again. When you conquer an American recipe in Germany - as you no doubt will - the victory will be all the sweeter for your earlier challenges.

Courage, Luisa! xo, Dawn

[Patrice]

Dear Luisa. I do believe that this is why we blog!! Not so much about, oh, here's this great beautiful thing I made (although we all love that part), but about wow...this is weird and interesting, and here's the problem and here's how I solved it (or haven't yet). This is a much more compelling story to me than a recipe for a perfect "something". You're doing so great. Mojo is just a little jet-lagged still.

[absinthe]

Chiming in with baking experience from Holland. I third or fourth the Asian store recommendation. I was able to find cream of tartar, corn starch, and baking soda so I can make my own baking powder. I did finally find it here at a British store, but it's really expensive.

For brown sugar & molasses (dark treacle seems to be the same thing), the English store came through again here, but I've also found that palm sugar can sub for brown sugar sometimes, and that should be easy to find at an Asian food store.

Hey, my inner researcher took over and I just did a search. Here are two English food shops in Berlin: Broken English and English food shop. Look here: http://www.berlinfo.com/Lifetime/Shopping/food/British/index.htm

Don't know how far they are from you, but may be worth a look.

Good luck, and happy baking!

[Eva]

I feel your confusion...I'm German and let me tell you, none of my german recipes turn out with American/Canadian ingredients...so I so understand your frustration! You shall get your food mojo back, don't worry, one day it will just show up...most likely when your hungry and can't get to a kitchen, that's when mine does at least.

[Vanessa]

Hmm, dear Luisa I think you're being far too hard on yourself! To be honest, the baking powder in Germany is a mystery to me; some make my cakes rise, others not so much, just trial and error. I have a gas oven that is the biggest pain in the neck; it cooks cakes in about a quarter of the recommended time, burning them underneath and not cooking them on top - nice! But I've persevered and apart from macaroons, most of my things turn out great. Try not pre-heating much, using the lowest setting and if needed, wrap the tin in foil to make it less likely to burn. Your such an amazing, inspiring cook and I know you'll get your mojo back soon.

[radish]

I hear you on the mojo. I was making buttermilk muffins last week and the batter curdled and separated on me - it looked like a total disaster. But hopefully you'll be back in full swing of things. Sometimes cooking mojo needs a sabbatical (a mini one, as such). I think you should do both - explore the German side of leaveners and such and try to make American ones. Better yet, email me your address again (I've misplaced it) and I'll be thrilled to send some brown sugar and other goodies your way.

[Torie]

I'm not living in Berlin, but I am a Canadian who lives in France, and cooks mainly American recipes, so I can understand your frustration.

Brown sugar here in France is called vergoise, I would never had guessed it until I read about it on David Lebovitz's site (he has a good entry on French equivalents of American ingredients, might be helpful for you). Maybe they have that in Berlin?

You'll get the adjustments figured out, eventually, it just takes time. Keep at it!

And I'll add another vote for more German recipes, please! :)

[Andrea]

Luisa, I think you can make your own brown sugar by adding molasses to white sugar. Not sure about the exact proportions (I think it's one cup sugar: two Tb molasses) but if you have a food processor, white cane sugar and plain-jane molasses-- voila! Brown sugar.

[Hilary]

Two Ideas for You:

1. Make sourdough rye bread. Aren't they expert at that in Germany? And besides two stands at the Union Square Farmers Market, it was an exceptionally rare thing in New York.

2. Check out Elizabeth Davids "English Bread and Yeast Cookery" for some notes on gas mark and temperature equivalents. I'm not sure she's got any information you don't already, but you may find her words reassuring, at least!

[cj]

Now, my dear, take off that crown (befitting though is it for a drama queen) and get thee to the Palace for some proper German cake and coffee. Once you have composed yourself, get back into the kitchen and start baking. ANYTHING. It does not matter where the recipe comes from, just do it, and your mojo will return.

[Lisa F.]

Don't give up, Luisa! You'll get used to everything, even gas marks! I think you should find the great bakers in your nearby community and ask them what they do. Keep posting!

[Sasa]

I hear you - I'm a Kiwi living in a small town in Austria who does lots of baking from American recipes...It can be a bit hit and miss and the first 3 cakes I made this year convinced me that I'd lost my mojo too (nasty and dry banana cake, crumbly saffron and almond cake and an only so-so fig cake, meh) but I definitely do pretty well - I made crumpets, bagels and English muffins with much success.
It's hard when you don't know exactly how they've (American recipe writers) measured their ingredients (I always use scales since I don't have any measuring cups, much less American ones) though that's probably not your problem.
Like others I find extracts hard to get (I got friends to bring vanilla from the U.K and my mum sent me a couple of bottles of coconut essence (one of which leaked all over the Xmas stocking she sent, argh) but haven't found any satisfactory brown sugar subs - there is a thing called gelbzucker which is texture-wise better than the stuff they call braunzucker but is really just raw sugar though.
Never had any problems with the baking powder or baking soda though, I use a brand of the former called Aro and the latter is called natron or speisesoda by Kotanyi. I use kuchenmehl for all cakes, naturrein type W700 from Spar for all purpose and Rauch Brotmehl for bread - it's kinda greyish because of their weird ash content way of measuring hardness but it seems ok.
I'm not aware that I've had any butter issues - I've never adjusted for butterfat/water at any rate and it seems fine.
Gas oven's a toughie though, maybe try rotating more?

[Sasa]

PS: Here is a great temperature, butter and various other things online converter I use in case you need one.

[Melissa]

Hi there. I'm an American who has lived in Dublin and Zurich and is currently in England. It took me a while to adapt american recipes to european components. I found that for many cookie recipes I had to reduce the amount of butter by a bit (sorry, I'm a baker who eye's things!) - maybe by 1/8th to 1/4? I also just used straight up white sugar if I couldn't get brown - seemed to work well enough, although I like the idea of mixing with molasses. I bet Harold McGee would have some ideas on what to do there. For flour, I mainly used the 'zopfmehl' sold in Switzerland - basic white flour, but probably equivalent to strong white flour. I've recently moved into a house with a gas oven (in Gas Marks and not C) and have found a thermometer is really useful. The temp gradient from top to bottom of oven can be close to 100C! So you'll definitely need to play around with where in the oven things are baked. Good luck and happy trying!

[Kathleen]

Hi Luisa,

I had the same issues when I moved last year, and for me it was a combination of adjusting to new ingredients and just figuring out my new kitchen/oven/etc. Things that worked right away for me were brownies (hard to go wrong with butter and chocolate), the chewy cocoa cookies from Alice Medrich (via Orangette) and David L.'s Butterscotch pudding. (Not baking, but holy cow is that stuff good.)

I also make my own vanilla extract (with whiskey) and for brown sugar I normally use Gepa brand Muscovado from the organic grocery (a big brown box). It's nowhere near as moist as normal American brown sugar, but it tastes great and I have used it quite successfully in many a recipe (including the butterscotch pudding, yum), but I will often take out a tablespoon or two from the measured amount before adding it because it seems a bit sweeter. Flour-wise, I normally use 405 for cakes (from the organic grocery again, seems more like American AP than the normal grocery store 405 stuff) but for cookies I use a mix of 405 and 550 (2/3 405 to 1/3 550). The no-knead bread works great with 550, and I have made the chocolate chip buckwheat groat cookies you posted about with half 405 and half Weizen Vollkornmehl. There's information from King Arthur about German-American flour conversions here.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/6037/europeanking-arthur-flour-equivalents

I don't always find it entirely accurate but it's a good place to start. I have also made your Focaccia di Patate many times using 405 flour and it worked every time (I think I made it once a week this summer). Recently I have been pondering the mysteries of German dairy products - for example, what is the difference between Rahm and Sahne? (There is an awesome flow chart under the Wikipedia entry for Sahne, it's going on my kitchen wall.) I hope some of this helps, I know it will get easier as you settle in! Viel gluck!

[anne spice]

It will take a bit to get the "feel" of the new temps/measurements/ingredients, but don't worry! You'll get there!

I second the idea of taping conversion charts to the inside of your cupboards. And definitely go the European way and buy an electronic Salter scale stat! So easy... just zeroing out and adding the next ingredient on your list to the exact gram - what was I *doing* messing around with/dirtying all those silly measuring cups/spoons for soooo many years?!?

[Julia]

Luisa,
All I can say is that your coffeecake sounds supremely better than the "banana bread" I once concocted in Japan. More like "banana brick." It wasn't really edible, although my host mother took it to the office, telling me that "the men there will eat ANYTHING." And, apparently, they would...

[Erika from The Pastry Chef At Home]

No, you're not being a drama queen. Changing your cooking environment is annoying! I just spent a month attempting to bake in the suburbs of England (hard stuff for a New Yorker) using English ingredients and an Aga stove and I loathed every second of it. You just have to do a lot of experiments. I have to suggest though that you purchase an oven thermometer right now. It will make you want to rip your hair out little bit less!

[Caroline]

I don't know about the availability of molasses in Germany, but if you do make your own brown sugar according to the recipes above, a little cinnamon added to the mix makes it especially delicious. And adds the feeling of being in control of your kitchen surroundings! My time cooking once a week for 50 in high altitude Central America with meager substitutes had me hating on off days and loving the challenge on good days--which made for a lovely blend of trying the familiar and the foreign.

[Ernie]

You can order varieties of sugar from Billington's over the internet - it sounds a bit crazy to do that but well...everything for the cake, right? There's also a pretty good assortment of special baking stuff in the "Bioläden" that you should find a lot around Berlin, especially in Prenzlberg. (They usually have a sugar calles "muscovado" that is pretty dry, but still better than the regular brown stuff.)
The trick with the Grafschafter works nicely aswell - its what I did when I came back from the US with Tollhouse Chocolate Chips on my hands ;-).
Greetings from Hamburg!

[Leah]

Maybe your mojo and my mojo ran off together and are sunning themselves on the beaches of Punta del Este. Because I'm mojo-less in my own way these days.

Big change throws everything off. You've got all sorts of adjusting to do, but you'll do it. And you'll figure out which path feels right - American recipes in Europe? European recipes introduced to your non-Euro readers? Or a healthy, happy mix of both? Whatever it is, you'll work it out just like these recipes. Of that I have not a shred of doubt.

But when you do find your mojo, ask if mine can come back too. Thanks. xo

[Rose-Anne]

Aw, Luisa! At least the cake LOOKS delicious. I have no advice for you, but I'm totally charmed by all the commenters above who do. What kind and generous readers you have! It makes me feel warm and fuzzy :-)

Oh, and "'mit shlag!' Indecent amounts of shlag!" TheKitchenWitch, you crack me up!

[whitney]

whenever i run out of brown sugar, i just mix some dark molasses with regular sugar. it works perfectly!

[laura]

I'd love some authentic German recipes- When my husband and I were in Germany, we ate amazing food in Munich for which I rarely see recipes. I've only been reading your blog for a few months, but no doubt your mojo will return as soon as you feel more settled. Best wishes - I enjoy your blog.

[Meri]

That's tricky, for sure. But it's just transition...never easy being back at your folks, I know that one myself. (it must naturally be getting to you at least a wee bit :)I went from living in an urban metropolis to surviving 7 months in small town Canada with my folks...took me a while to get used to not being able to buy lentils (certainly not anything exotic, but really hard to find!) , coriander, miso, wasabi, taro, mango, fresh fish, espresso, haloumi, etc etc etc any time I wanted it (day or night even) . But getting back to basics actually grew on me, though living in my old bedroom never did :) I decided to stop whining (not that you were whining - I was) and go indigenous and/or traditional. I mastered old classics I never thought I would be interested in making and tried to learn from the wisdom/mistakes of the home cooks I met. Even preserves, which I never thought I would make (including lemon curd). My urban multi-ethnic recipes were not required and not desired by those I was cooking for, and furthermore they were not possible and so I adapted. Baking has its special challenges in continental translation...sorry, can't advise on that part!! Good luck. Once you have your own digs, it'll all start to jive.

[the lacquer spoon]

Lovely :) I've tried Butter milk outside Japan and is now one of the ingredients to which my interest goes. The thing is...it' not available in Japan!

[Julie]

oh I SO went through this when I first moved to Berlin. It was so discouraging.

First: I bring brown sugar, vanilla extract and baking powder from the states (or have someone mail it to me!). If I don't have american brown sugar I use Muscovado (you can find it at the BioMarkts), which gets better results I find. Since you will have a hard time finding molasses here (sometimes its a KaDaWe), mixing that with white sugar is usually a moot point.

Here is an awesome link from King Arthur that outlines the differences between american and german flour, and will help you choose the best flour: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/flour/european-flour-equivalents.html

Good luck! You will get it all figured out sooner than you think.

[Jean]

Yes that stuff labelled brauner Zucker is really more like raw sugar isn't it, and somehow the texture and flavor mean that it is quite inadequate as a substitute. But right now I have the reverse problem of trying to bake according to German recipes outside Germany and I do think that German baking has a lot more (sometimes peculiar) specific baking ingredients than Anglo baking . . .

[Claire]

I live in Sydney, but am English, so have lots of UK cookbooks (who am I kidding, I have lots of cookbooks from everywhere..) but I've found that if you go to the same supermarket, and ask for the product you want (that they don't carry) and you do this a few times (try asking a different person each time) they sometimes start to stock that product as it's 'in demand' - has worked more times than I expected.
Good luck experimenting!

[Cathy]

I've found the right kind of brown sugar at the Coop supermarkets (their Solidal brand) in central Italy. Look for it next time you're down here!

[la ninja]

oh wow, I don't even bake often but loving all the replies. I tried baking a british recipe when I first got to a'dam and it was a bloody disaster (but, then again, as I don't bake I put it down to inexperience until I was told that self-raising flour and the kind were different over here and that for the exact science baking is, that was a big deal. I stopped there and then. haven't baked again until recently.)

my american friends (living in the netherlands) would probably be able to help you out but I have seen there's enough up there to get you going for a bit. btw, I also use palm sugar for thai dishes and the like (available at asian "tokos".)

hang in there, pet, mojo'll be back.
but then again, don't expect things to be the same 'cos they aren't. I find some spanish dishes are best just made in spain where you have all the proper stuff. replicating is nice but I'm also a firm believer of "when in rome..." rather than trying to stick to what we know and trust. but hey, that's just me ;)

oh yeah, I loved the comments "Maybe mojo just travels on a slower boat" and "Now, my dear, take off that crown (befitting though is it for a drama queen)". ;)

someone stop me now. please.