New Year's Eve Cake 2014

A festive end to fantastic New Year's Eve dinner and a fantastic year!

400 gram marzipan and icing sugar kneaded into a homogene pulp (the pulp should have been heated to approx. 50 degrees - but we forgot this step). Roll into a "sausage-shaped" of approx. 1,5-2 cm width, cut in smaller pieces and form rings and make a top. Bake the rings at 200 degrees until they look right :-). Pipe them with white royal icing and place on top of each other to form a tower. Eat with a glass of champagne :-)

Strawberry cake with pink icing cake

My daughter got to choose which dessert she wanted for her birthday, and she opted for a strawberry layered cake with gluten free cake cut in to 4 thin sponges, whole strawberries, whipped creme and chocolate custard. Not the pretties of cakes, but it was really yummy!

Snowman (monster) cupcakes

Caroline had told me that she wanted snowman cake to hand out to her friends at the kindergarten, so I thought 30 cupcake snowman would be just the thing.....

The base was chocolate Victoria sponge with vanilla syrup and the heads were so called Oatmeal balls (Danish "havregrynkugler", which is a traditional and very popular Christmas sweet in Denmark and then drizzled with desiccated coconut. The whole thing was covered in Italian meringue butter creme (which had become way too soft).

I had hoped for a less messy look, but the kids clearly recognized that the snowman look and none of the snowmen survived the day, but that's the fate of snowmen :-)

 

Christmas tree cake 2014 with candy

No December without a Christmas tree.... and this year, I had decided to try a more simple version that in previous years - namely using candy for ornament on the tree, rather than making it my self out of fondant. It's cheating of course, but the young Caroline who helped me seemed to prefer the candy version (could have something to do with the fact that she got to eat most of it.....)

And the cake.... well, yes, it's P's brown Christmas cake: 100 grams of butter, 100 grams of sucker and 100 grams of syrup is melted. Once cooled down a bit, mixed with 1 tea spoon of natron dissolved in 1 dl of buttermilk + 2 tea spoons of cinnamon, 1 tea spoon of clove and 1 tea spoon of cardamom + 250 grams of flour. Placed in a pan. Baked for approx. 20 min at 180 degrees.

Pretty simple Christmas cake

Johan had promised his colleagues to bring a cake to work,,, and it is December... so the cake baking kitchen is open......

The cake... well, it was the standard Christmas cake: P's brown Christmas cake :-)

100 grams of butter, 100 grams of sucker and 100 grams of syrup is melted. Once cooled down a bit, mixed with 1 tea spoon of natron dissolved in 1 dl of buttermilk + 2 tea spoons of cinnamon, 1 tea spoon of clove and 1 tea spoon of cardamom + 250 grams of flour. Placed in a pan. Baked for approx. 20 min at 180 degrees.

Christmas wreath cake

It's finally, finally, finally December...... I have been longing for this, since sometime in March and 1st Sunday of advent was celebrated making this christmas wreath cake for my colleagues:

The cake was "P"'s brown christmas cake: 100 grams of butter, 100 grams of sucker and 100 grams of syrup is melted. Once cooled down a bit, mixed with 1 tea spoon of natron dissolved in 1 dl of buttermilk + 2 tea spoons of cinnamon, 1 tea spoon of clove and 1 tea spoon of cardamom + 250 grams of flour. Placed in a pan. Baked for approx. 20 min at 180 degrees.

The cake was covered in butter cream with cocoa and the covered in marzipan and decorate with small sucker pearls.

Shoe cake for birthday party

Half a year ago, the neighbor's daughter, Isabella, announced that: "when I turn 6 years old, I want a pink cake with a shoe on top", and this is what she got:

It was a layered cake; thin chocolate sponges, two layers of chocolate custard, and one layer of strawberry/blue berries/whipped cream (in the middle). The cake was covered in marzipan and the shoe...all sugar :-)

Simple one rose cake - engagement cake

I have been wanting to do a lovely white spring rose as a cake topper for a long time, and when we were invited to dine with some friends, who recently got engaged - I just jumped at the opportunity...

I'm afraid good old Eddie would not approve of the quality in the piping work! When the icing isn't firm enough it's almost impossible to make straight lines. I'll do better next time :-)

The cake was a four layered cake with sheets of chocolate/hazelnut-sugar cake, coffee syrup and hazelnut mousse - all covered in marzipan. It made for a lovely dessert.

Basket of flowers-cake

When I asked my little friend, Lorenzo, what he wanted for his birthday, he said: "A cake". When I asked him which cake he wanted, he said: "A purple one - with flowers". This is what I cake up with:

The boy looked well pleased with the result (and when you turn 3 years old, it's ok to want and get an unorthodox birthday cake!)

The cake is a carrot cake, the "basket" is piped creme cheese icing and the flowers are fondant.

Noah's arc cake

Noah's Arc seemed a befitting theme for a cake for a christening - a biblical story (even if it is old testament) and full of animals (easy and fun to make):

The cake is a carrot cake (300 gram grated carrot soaked in 2 dl sunflower seed oil soaked for 1 hour + 120 gram egg beat with 200 gram sugar + 200 gram flour, baking powder, cinnamon, vanilla and salt) and covered in marzipan. The animals are made of fondant.

Football cake - with Real Madrid and Barcelona figurines

My nephew, the ever lovely Theodor, turned 7 and like all other boys he just loves Messi and Ronaldo so a foot ball cake it was:

I borrowed the my brother's recipe for the grass-mat cake: three thin vanilla sponges, one layer of crushed macaroon, vanilla custard and a thick strawberry syrup and one layer of wiped creme and strawberry syrup. Covered in nougat and green marzipan.

The football is the usual chocolate cake (chocolate, nuts and butter and not much else) - baked in a bowled (two of those) and the two halves were "glued" together with an orange syrup. All covered in nougat and marzipan.

....and the figurines (meaning to represent Real Madrid and Barcelona - Messi and Ronaldo to be more exact) were made out entirely of sugar, and happily ended their days in the stomach of the birthday boy....

Ladybird cake

I have no idea what the common denominator is between off-shore contracts and ladybirds, but last week when I attended a course on the first topic, I found my self thinking that I'd be fun to do a lady bird cake:

and so for afternoon tea with my brother-in-law and his girlfriend I made this cake.

It's was a layered cake, with strawberry syrup, whole strawberries and chocolate mousse. Covered in marzipan.

We eat one half - the other half when next door to our cake-loving neighbors.

Sugar balloons and oriental string work

I was invited to a party to celebrate my friend Karin, who turned 40 and had just become a doctor of philosophy - all of which called for a cake. I came up with this:

The balloons were made with great difficulties and burned finger tips! 3 part isomalt and 1 part water. Heat it up to 165 Celsius. And blow air in to the sugar with a copper straw and a rubber pump.....

The oriental string work worked like a charm.

The cake it self was chocolate, hazelnut, orange zest, ginger syrup, egg, caster sugar and a little bit of flour, covered in nougat and marzipan.

I used baking trays size 16cm, 22cm and 27cm (the last one probably should have been a size 29cm for a more harmonious look).

Quick red birthday cake

A new (cake baking) year has begun, and I have a great many cakes planned (optimism is a virtue, or?). So to get things going I kicked the year off by bringing a birthday cake to the office, I'm afraid that Mr. Eddie Spence would not be impressed by the piping work, but it tasted absolutely wonderful (chocolate, hazelnuts, butter, sugar, eggs, 25g (!) of flour and an orange/ginger syrup).