Granatsplitter

My boyfriend just told me that these little cakes are his favourite from all the things I have ever baked. OK, I have to admit that they taste and look very nice (even if I say so myself). However, they are very quick to make (unlike my 5-day sourdough adventures and other more complicated recipes) and the recipe was invented (not by me, but by German bakeries) for using up leftover cakes, biscuits and cream fillings. I didn’t add an English translation for the cakes in the title, because it is a bit weird. Literally translated, Granatsplitter denotes ‘shrapnel’, presumably to indicate their content of leftover cakes. But never mind. I have yet to meet somebody who doesn’t enjoy these.

Granatsplitter are a creamy cake mixture placed on a biscuit and covered in chocolate icing. The ingredients for the creamy mixture can be varied with whatever is available. The idea is to use up leftover cake or other sweet baked goods (sponge cake that has gone a bit hard, muffins, cheap or broken biscuits, fruit cake, pastry shells...) and to mix these with butter cream and any other ingredients that take your fancy or that you would like to get rid of (berries, jam, nuts, raisins, chocolate chips, et cetera). I previously made them with some of the butter cream, sponge cake and cherries leftover from my Donauwellen cake. The variations are endless, but here is the basic recipe I used for the cakes in the picture. It makes about 15 Granatsplitter.

15 small, round biscuits of your choice (ginger nuts are good, for example)

For the butter cream (alternatively, you can use leftover icing or butter cream, if you have it):

 20 g corn flour

3 tbsp sugar

Some vanilla extract (or seeds from one vanilla pod)

250 ml (1/4 litre) milk

125 g butter at room temperature

For the chocolate covering:

150 g chocolate of your choice (I used dark chocolate on the picture)

1 tbsp sunflower oil or 1 tbsp butter/margarine

Other ingredients for the filling:

Volume equivalent of about 5 thick slices of sponge cake and a few biscuits, if you like.

I also added some frozen raspberries

For the butter cream, mix the corn flour with the sugar and vanilla. Mix this with about half a glass of the milk (make sure there are no lumps). Bring the rest of the milk to the boil. Add the corn flour mix, whisk continuously, and boil for about 2 minutes. Leave this ‘custard’ to cool down to room temperature. When the butter and the custard have the same temperature (this is important, otherwise the mixture might curdle) whisk the butter with an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Add the custard spoon by spoon and mix until you have smooth butter cream.

Crumble up the cake and/or biscuits you are using. Mix these with the butter cream and add any other ingredients you would like to use. For the Granatsplitter in the picture I added some frozen raspberries (the cream can be flavoured with cocoa powder of with a few spoons of rum, brandy or amaretto, if you want).

Now shape the mixture into balls to fit the diameter of the round biscuits you are using as a base. It is easiest to do this with an ice-cream scoop or with two large spoons. Place these balls on top of the biscuits and slightly press down.

Melt the chocolate (in a bain-marie or carefully in the microwave) and add the oil or butter (this is not essential, but I find that it makes the chocolate covering a bit softer and it is also less likely to go white). Dip each Granatsplitter in the chocolate to cover it completely. Leave the chocolate to set and keep in a tin in the fridge.