Princess cake – for newborn girl

One of Caroline’s little friends from kindergarten, Bille, became a big brother this week. That’s a big thing when you are 4 years old, and Caroline suggested that we should make Bille a cake to take home to his newborn sister. I could think of no good excuse for not making a cake.

The cake consisted of two layers of chocolate mousse between three layers of thin cocoa cake sheets and covered in 1:1 ganach and marzipan. The decorations including the princess crown were made out of fondant.

Thin cocoa cake sheets:

2 eggs whisked white with 80 grams of sugar + 40 grams of flour, 30 grams of cocoa powder, a pinch of salt, ½ tea spoon vanilla sugar and ½ tea spoon baking powder. Spread out on baking paper covered baking tray and bake for 6-8 minutes at 200 degrees).

Chocolate mousse:

150 grams of chocolate melted in water bath. Add 2 egg yokes. Carefully add 2 egg whites whisked stiff with 1 table spoon sugar. Whip 2 dl cream and add to chocolate.

1:1 chocolate ganach:

200 ml of boiling cream poured over 200 grams chopped dark chocolate. Let sit for a little while, then stir until smooth. Let chill until it has the same feel as soft butter. Cover the cake and let chill before covering the cake in marzipan or fondant.

Autumn cake – basket with marzipan apples and pears

My computer crashed, so I had to go in to the office (in the middle of my maternity leave period). Doing so requires a cake – at least in the eyes of my colleagues, so I made a carrot cake and disguised it as a basket with little apples and pears made out of marzipan. They were well pleased and the computer was fixed.

The recipe:

300 grams of finely grated carrots soaked in 1 ½ dl sun flower oil for a least an our.

200 gram of brown sugar beaten light with 2-3 eggs (120 grams). Add 200 grams of flour, 1 tea spoon of salt, 2 tea spoon baking powder, 2 tea spoons of cinnamon and 2 table spoon vanilla sugar. Add the carrots. Bake for 45 min at 170 degrees.

The "basket" was royal icing with added cocoa powder.

Very basic LEGO cake

The municipal of the town we live in had threatened to shut down my daughter’s kindergarten. Miraculously, the politicians changed their mind, allowing 4 adults to keep their jobs and 30 children to keep their routines. That rather called for a cake.

In my experience children like chocolate cake, so that’s what they got:

250 grams of sugar beaten with 4 eggs until white. Add 250 grams of melted butter. Stir in gently 200 grams of flour and 50 grams of cocoa powder and 2 tea spoons of baking powder + 150 grams of chopped chocolate. Bake for 40 min at 175 degrees

Covered in 1:1 chocolate ganach:

200 ml of boiling cream poured over 200 grams chopped dark chocolate. Let sit for a little while, then stir until smooth. Let chill until it has the same feel as soft butter. Cover the cake and let chill before covering the cake in marzipan or fondant.

I covered the cakes in white fondant, and then I made as many LEGO bits as I could within an hour and then off to bed.

Unstacked cake with 50 roses for Tuscan wedding

This I will NEVER do again!

Some of our very dear friends were getting married in Tuscany this summer and they had very kindly asked if I would do the honour of baking the wedding cake. I proudly and gladly accepted. 

As my darling husband later remarked: You hadn’t really thought it through (he’s a kind man, and he was putting it mildly…): A new oven, someone else’ kitchen, little refrigerator space, two children to look after, 50 fondant roses to be made by hand, three stand alone mousse based cakes, all ingredients to be transported from Denmark to Italy, including 8 kilos of fondant, 30 degrees lovely Tuscan autumn days and a three days fabulous full on wedding….. I confess that I was a trifle stressed.

The bride was pleased, so mission completed:

The picture were taken by one of the guests: Henry Gibbs, who did rather a job of that.

The cakes consisted of:

Three thin cake sheets (2 eggs whisked white with 80 grams of sugar + 70 grams of flour, a pinch of salt, ½ tea spoon vanilla sugar and ½ tea spoon baking powder. Spread out on baking paper covered baking tray and bake for 6-8 minutes at 200 degrees). X3.

Layer of chocolate mousse:

150 grams of chocolate melted in water bath. Add 2 egg yokes. Carefully add 2 egg whites whisked stiff with 1 table spoon sugar. Whip 2 dl cream and add to chocolate. X3.

Layer of lemon mousse:

Beat 3 whole eggs with 100 g of sugar. Add 4 leaf of gelatin, which has been melted in a water bath + at least 1 tea spoon lemon zest and ½ dl of lemon juice. When nearly stiff gently add ¼ liter whipped cream. X3

Balloon cake

Our former neighbour, the lovely Isabella, had invited us to her birthday party. On the evening before, her mother send a text to ask, if I was bringing a cake.

With two small children at home baking and decorating a cake really was not on the agenda, but…..  I have been making cakes for Isabella since she was a very little girl, and having kids of my own really shouldn’t change that…., so I opted for a quick and simple layered cake:

Three thin cake sheets (2 eggs whisked white with 80 grams of sugar + 40 grams of flour, 30 grams of cocoa powder, a pinch of salt, ½ tea spoon vanilla sugar and ½ tea spoon baking powder. Spread out on baking paper covered baking tray and bake for 6-8 minutes at 200 degrees).

Creamy custard for one layer (as I was in a hurry I cheated and used Dr. Oetker, where you just add milk and cocoa powder to disguise the nasty synthetic taste (most people don’t even notice).

Whipped cream and strawberries for the second layer.

All covered in blue fondant and lots of fondant balloons.

LEGO cake in three layers for boys' birthday party

A former colleague of mine, Helene, sent me a message with a link to an amazing LEGO wedding cake (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cupcakes-by-SJ/554669104671327?fref=ts) with the words: 

“Next project?”

It turned out that her boy, Oliver, and his best friend, Dines, was to celebrate their 6^th birthday together, and Helene jokingly “ordered” a cake similar to the one made by Cupcakes by SJ but modified to serve 20-24 people and be suited for a boys’ birthday party.

She’s perfectly aware that I only make cakes for the fun of it (and don’t take orders), but a challenge is a challenge, and after all I am on leave….

I tried to by square baking trays at http://www.frederiksbergkoebmanden.dk/, but the ladies there were busy chatting with each other and didn’t seem interested in providing any help or guidance, so I opted for using my existing baking trays…. 

The cakes was baked in three round trays (10cm, 18cm and 26cm) and consists of:

600 gram of caster sugar beat with 10 eggs (until white). Add 600 gram melted butter.

Stir in 600 gram of flour + 4 teaspoons baking powder + 6 teaspoons of cocoa and 300 gram finely chopped dark chocolate.

Bake for approx 50 min. at 200 degrees preheated oven.

When the cake comes out of the oven, turn it upside down on a tray, soak in neutral syrup (sugar and water boiled to a syrup) and cover the whole thing in cocoa/butter cream.

The cake was covered in white fondant and the LEGO pieces were made out of coloured fondant (using a straw to make the little knops). All in all a kilo of fondant was used for this cake.

Summer cake - creepy-crawly (royal icing cake)

We had been invited to a summer party at my daughter, Caroline's, kindergarten, and every body had to bring something to the buffet. Caroline wanted to bring a cake (no surprise there) and she wanted a Lego cake.

However, this morning I realized that had mysteriously run out of fondant (wherefore making the Lego pieces would have been impossible), so she was asked to come up with a different wish for a cake. She asked if we could bring a creepy-crawly cake in stead....and I accepted the request (but mainly because, and I didn't have time to get some,...)

So rather than making Lego pieces, I spend my morning making spiders, ants, beetles, ladybirds and butterflies. It's very messy and lots of time for drying is required, but it's fun!

The cake was a chocolate sponge (250g sugar beating with 4 eggs. 250g of melted butter added. Then 250g minus 4 table spoon flour is mixed in together with 4 table spoons of cocoa, 2 tea spoons of baking soda and 150 of chopped dark chocolate).

The cake was baked for 45 minutes at 175 celcius, turned up side down on to serving tray, soaked in plain syrup and covered with cocoa/butter creme. The sides where piped with royal icing and the sugar bugs attached to that.