Tree Cake

I almost gave up on this recipe after burning seven cakes trying to get the baking method to work with an American oven (see Note). My Oma Sieghilde helped me figure it out when I first moved to the United States. Traditionally, baumkuchen is baked on rotating wooden rods next to an open fire, with layers of batter brushed on one layer at a time, creating a tree-ring effect. We can’t quite recreate that at home, but we can get close by layering the ba