Everyone knows about hot dogs, but what about cold dogs? No worries, no dogs have been harmed for this recipe.
Kalter Hund (literally “cold dog”) also kalte Schnauze (lit. “cold snout”) is an uncooked bar-shaped chocolate sn
ack. This dessert is made out of a cocoa and coconut oil mixture, and butter biscuits by layering these two ingredients in a baking tin.
The term is composed of the word Hunt, also written Hund (like the German word for dog), meaning mine trolley in German, which has the same shape as the backing tin that should be used to make this no-bake-cake. The adjective kalt (German for cold) refers to the fact that this cake doesn’t go in the oven but in the fridge.
Equivalents exist in other languages, for example Arretjescake in Dutch (where it refers to a cartoon character), kiksekage in Danish (lit.: “biscuit cake”), radiokaka in Swedish (named for its resemblance to oldtime radios), Κορμός in Greek (read Kormos, lit. “trunk”) , keks torta in Serbo-Croatian (lit.: “biscuit cake”) and kekszszalámi in Hungarian (lit. “biscuit salami”).
The end results look very similar with the only difference being that sometimes the biscuits are crushed whilst in other cases it is kept whole. The number of ingredients and the texture might also change from one country to the other.
Recipe:
Ingredients:
- 250 g coconut oil
- 50 g icing sugar
- 50 g cocoa powder
- 150 g dark chocolate
- 200 g butter biscuits
Let’s go:
- Get a rectangular-shaped baking tin.
- Melt the coconut oil, add the icing sugar, the cocoa and the dark chocolate, and froth the mixture.
- Start with a dense layer of biscuits (you can always adjust the size), then pour some of the oil and chocolate mixture on it. Continue until you have used all the ingredients by finishing with a layer of chocolate
- Use some clingfilm to cover the baking tin and put it in the fridge for about 3 hours.
- Flip the tin to get the cake out and decorate it with a topping of your choice.
- Enjoy!
References:
https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/servicezeit/video-kalter-hund-100.html
http://www.enzyklo.de/Begriff/Kalter%20Hund
https://www.oetker.de/rezepte/r/kalter-hund.html
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalter_Hund
Written by Djamila Klein – Terminology trainee at the Terminology Coordination Unit of the European Parliament (Luxembourg). She holds a Bachelor’s degree in French and German Studies from the universities Clermont Auvergne and Regensburg, and a Master’s degree in Translation FR<>DE<EN from the University of Strasbourg.