Danube Watch 3/2019 - Celebrate 25 Years of ICPDR with a Home-made Cake!

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Image text: Celebrate 25 Years of ICPDR with a Home-made Cake!

At our 22nd Ordinary Meeting in Vienna, attendees celebrated the 25th birthday of the ICPDR by enjoying some cake! Inspired by this, and not wanting to leave anyone out, we here at Danube Watch decided to kill two birds with one stone: First, provide a tasty recipe for our readers so that they can make their own cake at home to celebrate the ICPDR's birthday, and highlight some of the region's many agricultural products with the choice of cake.

The result is an apple walnut spice cake with a cream cheese frosting. Regional dairy products are reflected by the butter and cream cheese, and the eggs, flour, apples and walnuts are representative of other foodstuffs produced in the DRB. Even the sugar the recipe calls for could come from the Danube region (if it came from local sugar beets). Look at the origins of each of these ingredients and do your best to find those from the Danube River Basin countries, and enjoy! Makes 16-20 servings.

a cake on a table

Ingredients:

For the Cake:  

  • 335g of sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 125ml of melted butter at roomtemperature
  • 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract (or 2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar + 2 teaspoons milk)
  • 240g of flour
  • 2 teaspoons of baking soda (bicarb)
  • 1 ½ teaspoons of cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon of salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 500g of chopped apples
  • 117g of walnuts

For the Frosting:

  • 120g of softened cream cheese
  • 42g of softened butter
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (or 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar dissolved in 1 teaspoon milk)
  • 150g of confectioner's sugar

Instructions:

  • In a large bowl, beat sugar and eggs. Add butter and vanilla; mix well. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg; gradually add to sugar mixture, mixing well. Stir in apples and walnuts. Pour into a greased and floured 33x23-cm baking pan. Bake at 180° until a toothpick comes out clean, 50-55 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
  • For frosting, beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla in a bowl. Gradually add confectioners' sugar until the frosting has reached desired spreading consistency. Frost cooled cake.

Nutritional Facts:

  • 1 piece: 283 calories, 13g fat (3g saturated fat), 31mg cholesterol, 281mg sodium, 40g carbohydrate (28g sugars, 1g fibre), 4g protein.

icon Make sure to share photos of your own home-baked ICPDR 25th birthday cake with us on our ICPDR Instagram channel @ICPDR_ORG