Please note: this prize draw is now closed. / This month’s Silver Travel Cook Club features a recipe for German Apple Cake inspired by sponsor VIVA Cruises.
And you could win a copy of A Taste of Germany: The Complete German Cookbook With More Than 700 Authentic German Recipes by Hannah Becker.
Master cooking, the German way! This book will teach you all the basics you will need to know to get that authentic German Flavour, followed by the recipes including recipes for soups, casseroles, sauces, sauerkraut and of course sausages.
German river cruising with VIVA Cruises
European river cruise specialist, VIVA Cruises, announces the expansion of its second build ship, VIVA TWO, in 2023. On 23 March 2023, VIVA TWO will be christened in its home port of Düsseldorf. It will feature 95 stylish and comfortable cabins (including eight suites) for up to 190 passengers.
For the foodie lovers out there, VIVA TWO will be home to three restaurants on-board: VIVA’s Bistro, offering a casual atmosphere and a wide selection of snacks and smaller dishes available from early morning until late at night – as well as a privilege view from the back of the ship; Riverside, the main restaurant featuring a wide selection of breakfast, lunch and dinner menus; and MOMENTS, the place to go for top-class specialty food, accompanied with light entertainment. All dining options will be included in the cruise package part of the VIVA All-Inclusive product.
VIVA TWO’s 7-night Maiden Voyage will sail from Frankfurt on 1 April 2023, heading upstream along the Main River. Passing through cities including Bamberg, Nuremberg and Regensburg, the maiden voyage will take her along the Danube to the three-river city of Passau, the end destination. Costs for the Maiden Voyage start at £1,450 per person.
Recipe: German Apple Cake
Apple cake is revered in Germany, and Rick Stein’s classic apfelkuchen with a crunchy cinnamon topping will show you why. Any dessert apples will work for this, but avoid using Bramleys that won’t keep their shape.
Ingredients:
- 2 dessert apples, peeled, cored and sliced into thin wedges
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 125g/4½oz butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
- 140g/5oz golden caster sugar
- 3 free-range eggs, at room temperature, beaten
- 225g/8oz plain flour
- 2 level tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 5 tbsp full-fat milk
For the topping:
- 1½ tbsp demerara sugar
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 170C/150C Fan/Gas 3. Butter and line a 23cm/9in round cake tin.
- Coat the apple wedges in the lemon juice and set aside.
- In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar, using an electric hand mixer, until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat until smooth. Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix well. Slowly add the milk, mixing well after each addition, until you have a smooth batter.
- Transfer the batter to the cake tin. Arrange the apple slices, flat-side down, on the batter in a spiral pattern.
- For the topping, mix together the demerara sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over the batter.
- Bake in the middle of the oven for 40–45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean and the top is golden-brown. Leave to cool for 15 minutes in the tin. Run a knife around the edges of the cake and turn it out of the tin onto a wire rack.
- Serve warm or at room temperature with whipped cream
Recipe courtesy BBC Food
How to win a copy of A Taste of Germany: The Complete German Cookbook With More Than 700 Authentic German Recipes by Hannah Becker
Passports ready! Comment below to tell us about your 2023 travel plans, resolutions or where you would like to travel to
A winner will be chosen at random in early February 2023.
The competition closes on 31 January 2023.
52 Responses
January sees us heading off to the undiscovered Sierra Leone, followed by the even less well known African country of Sao Tome and Principe – it should be a real adventure.
I would love to visit Italy 🇮🇹 as I have never been and it looks lovely.
My granddaughter is a very good cook, I would give her the book.
[so we can enjoy memories of where my husband and I have travelled]
….when she invites us to some delicious meals.
I’m already booked to go to India in October, but I’m also fancying Costa Rica, Morocco, and Vietnam and Cambodia.
France to visit gardens and chateaux
I am hoping to return to Ireland this year. A few years ago we toured Southern Ireland and I fell in love with the Dingle peninsula. I’m hoping to spend more time in that area.
Love too return too Malta, Staying UK 2023
We hope to travel back to Australia this year and stay with friends. Travelled last year and it was so enjoyable with so many things to do and people to meet and such an enjoyable experience, we hope to go again to celebrate our 50th Wedding Anniversary.
Passport at the ready and cake has been made
Back to Berlin
Loved this! Just wish I’d thought to take a photo of it before we all descended on it like a flock of seagulls!
I am off to New Zealand next month.
Hi we are working through our bucket list. In March we are going to Krakow we visited years ago and were overwhelmed always stated we would like to return. In Maybwevare visiting Paris in particular the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa as we have been a number of times but for a variety of reasons never got to see the painting. Then in November if finances permit Australia and New Zealand we hope to visit for the first time
Been to various places in Europe but never Germany.
Shameful as my best friend from school is half German and would be an ideal companion.
I plan to go on my first cruise later this year when I retire. Not sure where yet but part of the fun of any new venture for me is in the research and planning. Who knows where I might end up!
In 2023 we will be catching up on the banked weeks at our Gran Canaria timeshare which is an overhang from the Covid affected years.
In the longer term Canada and Japan are on our bucket list, interspersed with European City breaks depending on West Ham’s progress in the European Conference League.
Plan to try a River cruise, provably Danube… can’t wait!!
Nothing confirmed as yet but want to regain my confidence for independent travel having not being able to do it for the last few years. Considering Scotland, particularly the outer lying islands, and returning to the Greek Isles or Italy. Also want to do explore more of our own beautiful island .
Off to Germany in May. Would love this book as German food is excellent.
I’m trying to persaude my husband to do a Danube river cruise for my birthday, think i’ll win eventually lol. Then definately another Christmas cruise & a few short breaks in the UK, all health permitting at the minute.
I love apple cake as I have a tree which is loaded every year. This Spring I am going to Scotland on an Alfa coach trip and we are visiting Skye and Mull. In late September I am going with a group of friends on a cruise visiting Dubrovnic and a number of islands round Croatia. I usually go on holiday with my family to Wales but nothing booked as yet. I intend to take a few more coach trips and might even book a river cruise.
I am always looking for a good cook book and this looks great
Going to Goa (India) this month for a well earned rest, followed by Majorca in August.
I would like to get back to Uganda where I do football coaching occasionally and visit schools and support a Youth Vocational Centre. I would also like to do a River Cruise to Portugal and would like to go to Costa Rica the wildlife seems amazing there. As a former pastrycook in my younger days i still do baking for my family so the Apple, Cake looks like something to try
Off cruising later this year to the Mediterranean and Canaries. Can’t wait!
Off to Poland to visit Auschwitz. Was due to go in 2020, but sadly Covid19 stopped that
No longer able to travel abroad due to age and health, so now have a Motorhome. Planning to see a lot more of the UK. There are some wonderful places to visit.
I have never cooked German food so this book will open up fresh ideas for dinner and other meals.
Planning to revisit Berlin, Paris and Vienna
I would love to go on another river cruise in Europe, Germany or Portugal, The slow pace is very relaxing and you see so much as you move along.
3 trips already in place, 2 of them still legacies from covid disruption. 2 expeditions with Hurtigruten: British Isles and Greenland, then a Danube cruise with Scenic. I enjoy staying in one accommodation and letting the scenery and excursions come to me.
Bucket list for 2024 is Japan.
Thinking about Egypt for the first time. Didn’t realise it’s so warm in winter. Already booked a staycation at Warner Leisure, another first for us. Mauritius sounds good but too expensive for us.
Israel for me!
Winter sun in the Canaries, followed by a week in Devon in the early spring. Waiting for inspiration for the rest of the year. The German countryside and rivers sound like a tasty recommendation.
Off to Germany soon. So near yet we have never been before.
After all the disappointments that C19 showered across all our travel plans ,we are so pleased that from Jan this year onwards we will have so many holidays to look forward to with both land tours and cruises occupying our time and stimulating all our senses .
Highlights no doubt will be 27 days on the Rhine and Danude , 20 days in the USA along the Mississippi ,blossom time in Japan, , Chile and Easter Island , a week in Brittany , and the now 3 years delayed land tour of Armenia ,Georgia and Azerbaijan . …………………….
I am actually looking forward to a couple of trips….to Stuttgart in Germany, where I always enjoy the wonderful Maultaschen… and then in Ischgl, a Strudel is a delight after a hard day on the piste!
And then of course….I am looking forward to a wonderful time in Crete, with amazing Greek salads and the delightful Lamb Kleftiko.
Fingers crossed Brittany in early May.
Heading to the Lake District in March, with the dogs. May is yet to be booked – can’t decide between Europe or the States. And looking for somewhere in October, possibly Wales, again with the dogs.
I would like to return to Arillas in North West Corfu, probably in June. The Isles of Scilly would be another choice and I’d like to travel there by train to Cornwall during the day and then by helicopter. Dorset to visit my sister-in-law in her new home near the Somerset border is also something to look forward to.
I am cruising to Malta in April
I have been lucky enough to ‘travel the world’ but there are still many places on my bucket list, with travel limited these past couple of years it’s time to explore again. My resolution is to tick off at least one of my bucket list destinations this year – will it be Vietnam & Cambodia, Bahamas, Bermuda, Grenada?
We are off to Rome to visit gardens in that area. Quite a few short stay visits to places in the UK, a number of them staying in Landmark Trust properties.
Would love to take my young family back to Germany and visit where I grew up, enjoy reminiscing again would be such a treat.. we are also off to see family in Cyprus.. My resolutions are to visit more new places with my family.
Looks like rainy Cornwall this year. Maybe no abroad (I of W) next year.
I’m booked to Scotland in March, Cyprus in May and a little cruise to the Norwegian Fjords in September, I’m sooooo excited.
I’ve just been skiing in Chamonix with Inghams and the snow arrived just in time ! You can read more about my experience soon and will be spending February in Sri Lanka. Then Malta in March and San Antonio in Texas in May, so lots to look forward to. It’s lovely to read all about your travel plans.
school holidays booked to mauritius in october
Berlin is like nowhere else. I look forward to another visit this year. Looking round the lesser known parts can be very stimulating. Take care though to make use of free toilets in those restaurants that still have them as a lot of holiday money can be spent on using public facilities. Men may be surprised especially.
A nostalgic visit to Jersey… My aunt lived in Jersey for a few years just after the war and I had two magical holidays with her. She lived in a beautiful old house complete with well and duck pond. She kept hens and I used to collect eggs each day. She was great friends with the farm next door and I would go through the hedge and across the field to help bring the cows in for milking and come back with a jug of warm frothy milk. To m y deliught I have managed to find out the location of boith the house and farm and some of their hsitory since then. They are on my list of places to visit (although I know they will have changed a lot over the last 70 years…)
My husband’s family are German and live near Regensburg. and a sister near Munich. We had a Danube cruise booked for my husband’s 70th birthday last November but it was sadly cancelled and replaced with a cruise on the Douro in March.
As well as going on a river cruise with my wife, I hope to sail to St Kilda off the west coast of Scotland as it’s on my bucket list and I’ve tried and failed to get there twice before, beaten both times by the Atlantic weather.
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