Welcome to The Storied Recipe Podcast, a podcast about food, culture, and love.
This recipe for Kalter Hund came from my podcast guest, Selina Goeldi. Make sure you listen to her episode From France, Where the Air is Full of Lilac Scent while you make her Kalter Hund: German No-Bake Layered Chocolate Biscuit Cake!
This cake is so good, words fail me when I try to describe it. I often decline chocolate desserts, but it isn't because I dislike chocolate. On the contrary, I adore chocolate and am often disappointed by desserts that dilute the rich, powerful chocolate flavor I seek. This cake delivers dark chocolate as it's meant to be: completely and utterly decadent, rich, creamy, and solid but soft. The crunch of the biscuit layers is necessary only as a foil to the chocolate perfection. Like the dessert itself, this chocolate texture is hard to describe. At first, Selina called it a ganache, but later, she referred to it as "chocolate butter". Whatever you call it, this chocolate is exactly what chocolate is meant to be.
P.S. Looking for more no-bake recipes? Check out this recipe for 3 Ingredient No Bake Mandarin Ginger Pie Dessert or this recipe for Thambuttu: Festive No Bake Banana Dessert from Coorg (India)!
Selina's Memories of Making Kalter Hund
Brick, as we call it in our family, is the regular birthday cake. My grandmother used to make it for her children, my mother for me (and her brothers' birthdays, happens, when my grandmother took her leave). The best thing was to lick out the bowl after she'd poured the mass into the mould.
-Selina Goeldi
Top Tip
You must line your loaf pan before putting the chocolate mixture in. If you don't line your tin with parchment paper/wax paper/plastic wrap it will be hard to get your Kalter Hund out of the tin after it has chilled in the refrigerator.
Ingredients & Substitutions
- Eggs
- Sugar
- Sweetened cocoa powder - Substitution: unsweetened cocoa, make a 56/44% mix, or 140g cocoa powder, 110g sugar
- Coconut oil
- Leibniz butter biscuits - Substitution: any other butter biscuits (butter cookies) of your choosing
Variations on Recipe
If you want to add even more texture to your cake (or break up the sweetness a bit since it is a very rich cake) you can add puffed rice, dried fruit, or small pieces of chopped nuts to your chocolate filling.
Instructions
- Prepare your tin.
- Place a heat-safe bowl over a pot of boiling water and double-boil the coconut oil.
- Mix the eggs and sugar, add in the cocoa powder, and then the coconut oil.
- Pour liquid into the tin, add a layer of biscuits, and repeat.
- Let the cake cool in the fridge for a day.
- Remove from the tin and place on a platter bottom up.
Kalter Hund's Many Different Names
This is a German dessert that is very popular at children's birthday parties as Selina mentioned above. The name Kalter Hund is odd, however. When translated it means "Cold Dog Cake".
In Germany the story is that the Hund part of the name comes from early 20th century mining, where the long rectangular mine carts are called hunds; they are said to resemble the pan in which you make Kalter Hund. In Italy they add dried fruit and it is called Chocolate Salami.
-Ron S. (a commenter on my post who helped me understand the name origin)
The interesting names don't stop there! It can also be called a Kalte Schnauze (cold snout cake), Kellerkuchen (basement cake or cellar cake), a brick cake (as Selina's family called it), Kalte Pracht (cold splendor), and a British name is a cold hedgehog slice (Kalter Igel).
Equipment
- Double boiler OR a heat-safe bowl and a medium saucepan
- Loaf tin (loaf pan)
- Decorative serving platter
Storage
- You can store any leftovers in the fridge in an airtight container for up to a week.
- If freezing, you can keep it for up to a month.
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Recipe
Kalter Hund: German No-Bake Layered Chocolate Biscuit Cake
- Total Time: 4 hours 45 minutes
- Yield: 16 servings 1x
Description
This layered, no-bake cake delivers chocolate as it’s meant to be: completely and utterly decadent, rich, creamy, and solid but soft.
Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- 100 g sugar
- 250 g sweetened cocoa powder (*See Note 1)
- 450 g coconut oil
- Large packet of Leibniz butter biscuits (*See Note 2)
Instructions
Cue Up The Episode!
- Make sure to listen to Selina on The Storied Recipe Podcast, From France, Where the Air is Full of Lilac Scent while you make her German No Bake Chocolate Cake recipe!
Prep
- Line the loaf tin with parchment paper. This will help with removing the cake at the end.
Make the Chocolate Mixture
- If you have a double boiler, heat the coconut oil until hot. If not, fill a medium saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Place a heat-safe bowl over the saucepan and pour in the coconut oil.
- In a separate bowl, mix the eggs with the sugar until creamy foamy white, and the sugar is entirely dissolved (five to ten minutes).
- Carefully stir the cocoa powder into the egg mixture (if you work too hastily you’ll cover everything around with a thin layer of cocoa dust). Fold the warm coconut oil in the mixture.
- Pour a layer of the egg/chocolate mixture (about 0.5mm) into the tin, then add a layer of biscuits on top. Repeat these steps until all of the chocolate mixture is gone. until all is used up.
- Put the cake in the fridge and let it cool until the next day.
- Carefully remove the Kalter Hund from the tin and remove the parchment paper scraps. Place on a decorative serving platter bottom up.
How To Eat It
- Cut 1 cm slices and have a cup of hot coffee or a fancy sweet wine along with it. It’s really good and absolutely okay to have a second helping.
Notes
- Note 1: If you can only find unsweetened cocoa, make a 56/44% mix, or 140g cocoa powder, and 110g sugar.
- Note 2: You can substitute with any other butter cookies.
- Make sure to listen to Selina on The Storied Recipe Podcast, “From France, Where the Air is Full of Lilac Scent” while you make her German No Bake Chocolate Cake recipe!
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 4 hours
- Category: Baking
- Cuisine: Western European
Nutrition
- Calories: 310
- Sugar: 7
- Sodium: 19
- Fat: 31
- Saturated Fat: 25
- Carbohydrates: 16
- Fiber: 6
- Protein: 4
- Cholesterol: 41
Felicitas Loranger says
I have grown up with Kalter Hund and of course love it but lost my original recipe. In order to not have to convert every thing into engl. measurements, i would have truly loved it to be already done for me. The recipe is true to what my mother made many many moons ago.
admin says
Hi Felicitas! I'm thrilled to hear it was true to your mother's recipe... and a big thanks for the suggestion to provide English measurements. This is on my (long) list of recipes to update and I'll do so when I update. Thanks again!!!
Ron S. says
In Germany the story is that the Hund part of the name comes from early 20th century mining, where the long rectangular mine carts are called hunds; they are said to resemble the pan in which you make Kalter Hund. In Italy they add dried fruit and it is called Chocolate Salami, and in the UK it is Hedgehog Slice. In Germany you would mix cocoa powder and sugar with fine almond meal, then very slowly add the warm (but not hot) coconut oil. Then very slowly add the warm (but not hot) milk, then very slowly add the well mixed, room temperature eggs. Most people who make this there use plastic wrap (easiest) or waxed paper rather than parchment to avoid it sticking.
admin says
Ron, this is incredibly helpful information - thank you!!!!!! I am working on updating this post soon and will include all of this information. Thank you again!! Really appreciate it. P.S. My son is living in Germany right now; he is studying physics at the University of Leipzig!