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.

Spring flower cup cakes

Sometimes you call the midwife; and you can only hope that someone kind, experienced, calm and utterly professional answers the call.

In April I was in luck! A fabulous midwife named Anja Flagstad made sure that my son was delivered safely into this world, and that I survived the ordeal without any physical or mental damage.

But she was not alone. She has some truly competent colleagues at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, and the all deserved a cake – and I really felt like making cup cakes....

The cakes consists of:

125 gram sugar beat with 2 eggs (until white). Add 125 gram melted butter. Stir in 125 gram flour + vanilla + ½ tea spoon salt + 1 tea spoon baking powder. Add 1/2 decilitre milk + approx 150 gram chopped dark chocolate and grated marzipan.  Pour into cup cake baking tray and bake for 15 min. at 200 degrees.

I used royal icing and fondant flowers for decoration. 

Italian wedding cake – test cake

I have learned something new: Butter cream frosting MELTS in warm weather.  

Even sitting on a table waiting 10 minutes to be served for high tea in a garden on a mild Danish spring afternoon in May (not warm at all really) is sufficient to melt the frosting and have the decoration fall off the cake.

This of course will not do at a wedding. Not at all!!! And I am glad I made this test cake (and saw the result), as I would otherwise have attempted to serve a cake covered in butter cream frosting at a wedding in Tuscany Italy in September……

Also, the roses will need to be different shades of pink and different sizes in order to create a harmonious effect.

Well, basically I just have a lot to learn, and then I can begin to figure out how to transport wedding cake more than 1300 kilometres from Copenhagen to Tuscany….

The cake was a sponge cake with chocolate and marzipan added to the dough for taste. 

Baby cake

For months, Caroline, has been looking forward to two things: Christmas and the arrival of her brother.

While Christmas is still uncomfortably far away, her brother, Christopher, made his arrival into this world on April 4.

Caroline (being her mother's daughter) proclaimed that this festive event called for a cake, that she could share with her friends at her kindergarten - and so I made her this one:

The cake was a chocolate sponge (500g butter, 500g sugar, 400g flour, 100g cocoa, 4 tablespoons of baking soda and 8 eggs = 32 servings) covered in chocolate butter cream and vanilla fondant.

Personally, I found the cake to be a little too plain, but children aged 3-6 apparently prefer simple cakes, and this one qualified (!), even though Lennart (Caroline's little friend) was horrified that Caroline's brother was missing both arms and a belly button - luckily, it's only the cake version of Christopher that suffers these handicaps, and this small oversight on my part didn't stop any of the kids from eating the cake with great enthusiasm :-)