Circus tent cake (with sugar clown)

Our upstairs neighbor has a daughter. She's a tiny little thing, with a enormous temper and a distinctive preference for colours and circus.

This lively girl turned 2 years old this past weekend, and when her mother suggested to me, that she did not feel up to baking a cake for the birthday party, I readily offered my cake making services (voluntarily and free of charge).

She seemed ever so relieved and grateful, that I didn't tell her, that I offered to do the cake for purely selfish reasons: I so wanted to do a circus tent! Unfortunately, it didn't turn out at all the way I had imagined it - strange how that seems to be the case with cakes as with live!

The cake is four layers of Victoria sponge, orange syrup and raspberry butter creme. Very yummy!

The clown (which I was actually quite pleased with) is 100% sugar.

New Year's Eve cake

Imagine spending a whole year doing exactly what you want to do - every day. Imagine waking up every morning, thinking that this day is going to be close to perfection, because you get to be present in the moment of today without worrying one second about tomorrow. Rather a luxury? Or perhaps an improbability? Either way, I can honestly say, that that was what 2012 was like for me. Not a small thing, I guess. And the year ended in champagne and a delightful little homemade marzipan ring cake (kranskage).

A new year has just begun, and I imagine that for me 2013 will mean less freedom and less cake baking, but I have now doubt that the coming year holds all kinds of new possibilities and adventures for all of us. And that it will be great!

Christmas tree

Merry Christmas everyone.

The cake consists of "P's brown cake": which is 100g syrup, 100g sugar and 100g butter melted in a pot (remember to stir), when the sugar/syrup/butter has cooled down a bit, add 2 tablespoons cinnamon,   1 tablespoons clove and 1 tablespoons cardamon. Add 250g flour. Dissolve baking soda (natron) in buttermilk and add to the dough. Bake for 30 minutes at 180 degrees.

The cake was cut out in 6 circles (9cm, 8cm, 7cm, 6cm, 5cm and 4cm diameter) and the circles were "glued" together with butter cream made with 100g unsalted sugar, 1 1/2 dl icing sugar, orange zest, and vanilla.

Birthday cake

Our daughter, Caroline, turned 1 year yesterday, which obviously called for a cake.

Regrettably, the month of December is (as you are probably aware) a busy month with very little room for play in the calendar, so I  didn't have much time to do Caroline's cake, so it had to be a very simple decoration.

It was a layered cake with strawberry syrup, strawberry mousse and chocolate ganache. Very nice!

Suitcase and book cake

A father, grand father, husband, author and lover of Rome turned 70, and as he is the father of a very dear friend of mine, I had promised to do the cake...

The cake was Victoria sponge, lemon syrup, butter cream flavoured with cocoa, chocolade ganache and marzipan. Apparently, it went down very nicely :-)

Christmas Biscuits

It's finally, finally, finally December AND its snowing! It really is the best time of the year (at least to me) and I go completely overboard in decorations, baking and presents - every year :-)

A couple of years ago my mother brought back a book from England called "Cooking for Christmas" edited by Martha Day. It's a terrific cook book full of awfully British food (rich, overly decorated and ever so yummy). Yesterday we had our selves a little Christmas/advent get-together with 40 of our closest friend ;-) and I had baked (amongst other) some lovely Christmas Biscuits, which I had seen in the aforementioned book.

It was a super party and so were the biscuits!

Oh, by the way the recipe is:
75g softened butter is mixed with 50g icing sugar and lemon rind. Beat in an egg yolk and sift in 175g plain sugar and a pinch of salt. Kead together, wrap in film and let sit in the fridge for 30 min. Roll out the dough, stamp out as many biscuits you can. Transfer to baking, mark top of biscuits with a cutter of your choice, chill for 10 min. Mix food colour with an egg yolk and pain the biscuits. Bake for 10-12 min. in a preheated oven (190 degrees). Have fun :-)

Mini cakes

For quite some time I have been wondering why my cakes seem to bulge (which is something that Peggy Porschen's cake never do!), and I came to the conclusion that it's because I always make layered cakes. The mousse simply can't stand the pressure from the marzipan and fondant, and the cake ends up being rounded on the sides.

Studying the sites of Peggy and other amazing cake-making ladies, it dawned on me that they use either mud cake or sponge cake. Both of which isn't nearly as yummy as a layered cake, but I thought I would give it go. So I made a victorian sponge cake soaked in raspberry syrup to add flavor and moist covering the cake in chocolate ganache and marzipan. To use the firmness of the sponge cake I cut out small squares of cake (5x4cm) and put them on top of each other to make miniature cakes.

My friend, H, came round for tea and chic flick, so I gave her the cakes to take home to her family, and I am still waiting to hear the judgement on the taste and texture.

But what ever the verdict is I think the miniature cake idea works.