Karen Wright: First birthday cake bake in caravan oven
Our third campsite on our Caravan and Motorhome Club Escorted Tour to the Romantic Road in Germany was near Augsburg.
The site was really lovely and had a gorgeous lake plus we were the only people on the site and our group is about thirty-five people so it was fabulous to have all the facilities to ourselves, and they were spotless and luxurious.
We had a couple of trips out on the coach. First, we went to Augsburg and we were very impressed with the city. My favourite part was the visit to the Fuggerei, which was the very first social housing in the world founded in the Middle Ages and is still in use today. We also visited Nördlingen which was a fine example of a medieval city complete with city walls. We had a three-course lunch in a tavern with very authentic German cuisine. This was included in the cost of the holiday as were all the guided tours.
Unsurprisingly with a group of people as large as ours, we had birthdays to celebrate. Since the weather was glorious, we put together a communal meal and a boules tournament. I decided to try my caravan oven for the first time and bake a birthday cake. It was a haphazard affair as I had neither scales or food mixer but I eyeballed the ingredients and the cake was declared a great success. I made a marble cake with cherries, Kirsch and a sweet cherry liqueur. I made a chocolate ganache to cover it with and then scattered over some sprinkles. I used a basic Victoria sponge ratio of equal parts of everything, it was a bit hit and miss with those eyeball measurements but I was pleased with how it turned out. No such luck for me with the boules tournament, I was eliminated in the first round!
It was soon time to move sites again, this time to head for our final site of the tour. We were heading just sixty miles further down the country and our destination was near Füssen which is a stone’s throw from Austria. It was fun waving goodbye to everyone in the group just to be reunited a couple of hours later. As we travelled along the Romantic Road, we soon saw the mountains in the distance and we were excited for our final adventures.