Ich bin ein Berliner. A very small cooks tour of Berlin.

Hallo meine freunde.
I'm just back from Berlin with my pals to celebrate the Hen weekend for my lovely friend Debbie. Who is getting married to the lovely Paul in May. And yes, I am doing the cake.

In amongst all the debauchery I did manage to squeeze in a few food treats that I would like to share with you all.

BUT FIRST. Inspired by this female bonding trip. I have put above a wee video of the ALL girl Metallica tribute band MISSTALLICA, taken from the show in Glasgow ABC 2010.

GIRLS ROCK. RAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!

So, we got up to many things. Our first food encounter however resulted in walking for miles to find a fancy gourmet burger place. It was shut, so we went across the road and had this instead.

Currywurst

Currywurst mit pommes frittes. Smothered in mayo and ketchup

Currwurst is basically a big grilled German red bratwurst, smothered in sweet curry ketchup sauce and sprinkled with curry powder. So simple but sooooooooo blimin tasty. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Next stop was some some sweet cakey goodness at Cupcake Berlin.
http://www.cupcakeberlin.de/index1.html

The king

I had "The King".A squidgy chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting and chopped peanuts on top. It was my "Big Hunk o'love". Ah ha ha ha.
I have no idea what anyone else had as I was far too busy stuffing my face.


Later that night we went to a Karaoke place called Monster Ronson's Ichiban Karaoke.
http://www.karaokemonster.de/

Rockin out to Enter Sandman

It was a cool divey kinda place with decent drinks and private booths so you don't have to humiliate yourself in front of strangers. Unless you want to of course.
Arlene and I belted out Enter Sandman. My throat was sore for three days after.

Apple sours, pin the cucumber on the hunk, cheap vodka, drinking games and various other things made the next morning a write off.

Debbie pinning the cucumber on the hunk. I got it on his knee.











Later we went to get some traditional German grub from a place called Prater.

http://www.pratergarten.de/e/index.php4

Being as Germany is the pork capital of the world and I am a pork fiend. I had roast pork with bread dumplings, German coleslaw and a big Stein of beer.

Debbie and Claire on the other hand ordered the ham hock. It was bigger than her head and I was very jealous.

Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum!

Pork as big as her heid.









Mmmmmmmm. Jiggly pork, potatoes, mustard and something else that looks rather suspect.











On the way back home we went into a wee place to get bubble tea.

Bubble tea is a mixture or sweet green or black tea with flavoured tapioca pearls. You get a big thick straw, drink the tea then sook up the chewy bubbles.
I had Hibiscus tea with strawberry bubbles. Debbie got some hot milk, blueberry concoction and nearly boulked. Ha ha.






Later we went dancing at Lido.
http://www.lido-berlin.de/
It was a cool place with a fuseball table, rock, indie tunes, cheapish drinks and some thought provoking artwork in the toilet.
I even asked for my drinks in German. Go me.
Vodka und sprudle wasser. And no, it's not a wierd drink. OK!

What do you like?
Gingers?????

Me and Arlene rockin out at Lido.











Ah, Saturday morning. Only slightly fuzzy and next up was the Bier Bike.
http://www.bierbike-berlin.de/

Bier Bike involves a big bike with a bar going round it. Marcus, our guide steers the bike and we go round the sites in Berlin. One of you goes in the middle to serve the beer and the rest of you sit round the bar and peddle like mad.
Now, being as we are all Scottish, some of us are a bit vertically challenged. The peddles are designed for men and all I can say is.... I don't think I can bear children. I had bike seat shaped bruises. The beer did help me through the pain though.
It was very fun and I would definitely recommend it.
I would also like to say. Sorry Marcus. I hope your ears have recovered.

Debbie being our very own Bavarian barmaid.
Bier, schnel, schnel.

Thank god the weather was good. Smile if you wanna go faster.

Sharon posing with a bier.

Pauline hiding behind our Bier Bike tunes. Indie pop all the way.









Feeling slightly woozy after the Bier Bike, we headed to Dolores for a big Burrito.

I had the classic pork Burrito (surprise, surprise), which had Spanish rice, lovely sweet spicy pork, sour cream, salsa, salad and cheese.
Man that was a tasty burrito.








Later on that night we got dressed up to the nines and went out to watch naked ladies do some Burlesque at Kleine Nachtrevue.

The girls were beautiful and the shows ranged from flamenco  dancing, naked ladies in hats, show tunes, comedy, noir, Rammstien, Heavy Metal tramp stripper and a Grand finale of Rocky Horror tunes and lots of thrusting.

http://www.kleine-nachtrevue.de/

The lovely 1920's era setting for the Burlesque evening.

Sorry, no photos allowed of the naked ladies, so here's some of us instead.

Me, Sharon and Claire. Yes, I am the shortest out of the three of us.

The highlight of the evening was seeing Debbie getting dragged up to the stage to dance to the Rocky Horror Picture Show tunes.





The very beautiful Claire and Debbie.















Next day was more sombre. A visit to the Holocaust Memorial and museum then off home back to Scotland.

I loved Berlin and recommend a visit for all. Just remember to bring a cushion if your going Bier Biking.

Prost.

A Heavy Metalers Guide to Berlin

As we are a very diverse group of friends there wasn't really much Heavy Metal madness going on.

But here's a list of some of the best places to go

Paules Metal Eck: No website but it's situated in Krossener Straße 15, 10245 Berlin, Germany

K17 Club: A Metal, Goth ans hard Rock club. They also have a Heavy Metal themed hostel that you can stay in too. Check out the website.

http://www.k17-berlin.de/content.php?page=start&lang=de&SID=g1ul3tvns860neep7d1fd6for4

Wild at Heart; A rock and Rockabilly bar. Apparently has the best looking bar staff in Berlin.

http://www.wildatheartberlin.de/

White Trash: Trashy rock place that serves food, has loads of nights on and even a tattoo parlour.

http://www.whitetrashfastfood.com/

Rockz: Bar that shows constant rock videos and has table service and good cocktails.

http://www.berlin-life.com/drink/pubs_cafes_details/142-Rockz

Feed My Frankenstein

God I freakin love this song. God I freakin love Waynes World.
I wish I was 23 and living back in the early 90's. That would be awesome.
I'd go to Seattle and hang out with Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and Alice in Chains and tell them all to lay off the freakin Heroin. It's bad for you by the way!

In honour of this song here is my Frankenstein inspired recipe for cupcakes.




Frankenstein cuppity cakes or green velvet and white chocolate

Makes 12
Ingredients

For the cake
30ml green food colouring
Half teaspoon vanilla
30g white cocoa powder (if you can't find white cocoa powder then you can use white drinking chocolate but you will need about 100g of this)
1 egg beaten
60g soft unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
150g plain flour
Half tsp bicarbonate of soda
Half tsp salt
120ml natural yoghurt
1 and half tsp white wine vinegar

Butter icing

125g soft unsalted butter
250g icing sugar
Half tsp vanilla
15ml green food colour

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees or equivalent (160 for fan oven)
Line your muffin tin with paper cases.
In a small bowl whisk together the white chocolate powder, vanilla and green food colour.
In a bowl sieve together the flour, bicarb of soda and salt.
Next using an electric mixer whisk the sugar and butter on high till it becomes white and creamy looking.
Once the butter and sugar is ready while still mixing on high add about a third of the beaten egg and whisk for one minute repeat with the other two thirds of the beaten egg.
Add the green cocoa mix and mix on low till just incorporated.
Sieve in half the flour mix and mix on low till just incorporated.
Add the yoghurt and mix on low till just incorporated then sieve in the rest of the flour mix and mix on low till just incorporated.
Add the vinegar and mix on high for 1 minute.
Separate the mix between the 12 cases then bake in the oven for 30 min or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean. (I've made this recipe tons of times and it never needs more than 30 min).
Take cakes out of oven and put on a wire rack to cool.

Once cakes are cool you can make the icing.
Whack all the ingredients into a big bowl and start mixing on low till incorporated. Otherwise you'll get icing sugar everywhere. Put the speed up to high and mix for a few minutes until soft and fluffy.

Pipe or spread over the cupcakes.

You can decorate with choc sprinkles or black jelly sweets or whatever you can find that looks minging.

Banoffee cupcake for Lynne

I made this little cake for Lynne for her Birthday.
Lynne is very pretty so I put a pretty little bow on top for her.