Movie reel cake

My oldest friend has turned 40. That's completely overwhelming. 40 years. That's a whole life. And what a life. It has been so much fun and full of drama (because that's what she is like).

The cake was 27cm in diameter and 9cm high. A layered cake: three sheets of sugar cake, raspberry jam and two layers of strawberry mousse. All covered in chocolate ganache and half a kilo of marzipan.

This was by far the most difficult and frustrating cake I have made to date. As a matter of fact this cake would never have been finished were it not for the good will and help of friends and family and complete strangers!

Eva, Jon, James and Karen were kind enough to searched for and trust me with old photos of Anne Katrine to document her entire life.

My brother-in-law, Jacob, took charge of getting the photos scanned and generally setting them up and getting them ready to be printed.

At first I wasn't too impressed with the customer service displayed by KageKompagniet, but they did do an amazing print job (http://kagekompagniet.dk/)

My parents, Ingolf and Kirsten, not only babysat my daughter (so I could focus on the baking job), they also drove all the way to Rungsted to pick up the printed photos (thus saving me from a nervous fit)

Johan displayed stoic calm in the face of the cake chaos that invaded his home.

and last but not least:

Clare, a professional Australian cake maker (http://clarescakes.com.au/), who has made the best movie reel cake I have ever seen (http://www.flickr.com/photos/35918036@N08/5925965482/in/photostream), generously took time out of her very busy schedule to answer my "how-to-do"questions.

Gift box cake

Sometimes, if you are really fortunate, you may find that your neighbor is in fact your friend. Not just someone you nod to in the hallway or someone from whom you can borrow an egg or some milk in cases of emergency - but someone you enjoy spending time with. My neighbor is such a person. She is fun and kind and full of energy and good humor. And I am proud to call her my friend.

A couple of weeks ago we were talking about all the birthdays coming up in September (and all the cakes I would have to bake), and she remarked, that she wasn't expecting a cake for her birthday. I couldn't really tell her that her four year old daughter, the amazing Isabella, had in fact only a few hours before been sitting in my living room flicking through Peggy Porschen's "Pretty Party Cakes" and had requested that I make a gift box cake for her mother. How could I refuse?

The cake was a layered cake - three sheets of light sugar cakes, lemon sirup and two layers of Morten Heiberg's awesome chocolate mousse (the best ever!!!!) (http://dessertcirkus.dk/default.aspx?pageid=42)

Pink striped birthday cake

Each year, my most clever friend, S, insists that she is turning 28, and this year was no exception.

As a loving comment to this unusual case of acute amnesia (or is it selective memory?), her husband had planned to have flags, balloons, and candles and hot chocolate, scones and a birthday cake ready for her when she came home from work.

Now, as this wasn't a normal children's birthday party, the cake couldn't be childish though it had to be girlish......

The idea for the design was inspired 100% from Ban Bakes - in Paris 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bonboneh/4029574838/in/photostream

Pink elephant cake

My little friend, Isabella, turned 4 years on Friday and naturally that called for a cake.

I have a vague recollection of her requesting a "princess-cake", but I don't remember how we ended up with a pink elephant cake...... Isabella didn't seem to mind :-)

The cake was a layered cake and consisted of white almond cake, lemon syrup and strawberry mousse.

The fondant proved to be a bit of a challenge, as I couldn't get hold of any Wilson fondant and the replacement sugar past was way too soft (though it did taste better).

Rose cake

I think that most "winter-children", i.e. persons born in the Nordic countries in the period between November and March, have (at some point in their lives) wished to celebrate a birthday in the garden on a sunny day, where the roses are in bloom, rather than having a birthday party in the dark and cold just before or just after Christmas and New Years....

.....and so I thought it was utterly clever of my friend, Katrin, to move the celebration of her 40th birthday to end June - not only did she get to throw an amazing garden party, she also got to stay 39 for an additional 6 month! and I got to do the ultimate summer cake:

It took two kilos of marzipan, 180 hand crafted roses, half a kilo of chocolate, one liter of strawberry sirup and three sheets of raspberry spongecake.... and the transportation from Copenhagen to Malmø by train in 25 degrees celsius was hellish, but the end result was exactly as I had hoped for:

The design for the cake was inspired by Peggy (who else?!?) http://indulgy.com/post/xpaQxiH061/romantic-rose-towerpeggy-porschen-cakes

P.S. I will NOT be doing this cake again any time soon :-)

Horse in a field

Apparently it is possible to be a "horse-girl" even before one is big enough to ride a horse! Henriette's youngest daughter, Marie My, is such a girl - she just turned 3 years old and all she wants in life is a horse called Bruno (?!?)

I am not sure my version of a horse, which seems to be a cross-over between a cow, a donkey, a horse and a hippopotamus, would fulfill the dream in real life, but as a cake decoration is fully suffices :-)

I borrowed the cake design from my good colleague and fellow cake maker, Mai-Britt: http://www.kagerier.blogspot.dk/2012/01/heste-kage.html

Book cake

Recently my brother-in-law, who studies a the Danish School of Media and Journalism, won a poster competition for the Cultural Harbour Festival in Copenhagen, which I think is pretty impressive!

The motive he chose for the poster is abstract and very simple, and I just love it:

http://www.kulturhavn.dk/nyheder/vinderen-af-arets-plakatkonkurrence-201dmin-plakat-er-et-portret-af-havnen-og-det-liv-kulturhavn-skaber201d

So for his birthday cake I thought it would be fun to use his poster motive as a book cake cover. I think it worked quite well.