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 :-)

Shrovetide cake (fastelavntønde-kage)

In Denmark we celebrate Shrovetide (fastelavn) by dressing up, eating buns with custard and whipped creme and beating a barrel filled with candy (and/or fruits) with a stick until the barrel breaks.....(agreed, it makes no sense at all).

In the old days the content of the barrel would not be sweets but a black cat, wherefore most barrels are decorated with images of a black cats cut out of paper (agreed, it makes no sense at all).

My daughter insisted we bring a Shrovetide cake to the festivities at her kindergarten (makes perfect sense):

The cake was a chocolate sponge (450g melted butter whisked with 450g of caster sugar until white and fluffy, 8 lightly beaten eggs stirred in and then 450g flour and 4 teaspoons of baking powder and 8 tablespoons of cocoa is added. Pour into well greased baking tray and bake for 40 min at 175 degrees).

When the cake came out sugar syrup was poured over it and then the cake was cut into the desired shape and then covered in chocolate butter-creme.

I used homemade fondant for covering the cake and making the decorations - and that was the last time I'll ever do that (!!) unless I find a different recipe - the fondant was much too sticky and difficult to work with, so the result did not look like what I had envisioned, but I'll just try again next year :-)

Moon cake with home made fondant

What to do when home with a 3 year old who has the flu and who wants to make a snow man - out of sugar, naturally - and you have run out of Wilton's white fondant?

Well, I had a bag of marshmallows (approx. 20 big ones) and some sunflower oil (3 tablespoons) which I melted with 6 tablespoons of water in a water bath (takes quite some time and you should remember to stir once in awhile). Once melted I mixed in with approx. 700 grams of icing flower in my Kenwood (would never have made it by hand!). The result? A perfect fondant.

The fondant snow man was a great success.... unfortunately, he didn't survive long enough for me to take a picture, so instead we made a lemon moon cake, which I brought to work:

The cake was a Lemon Moon cake (Victoria sponge with lemon zest and lemon syrup, covered in royal icing. The stars and the moon was made out of home made fondant)

Butterfly effect cake (No. 3)

I woke up Sunday wanting a to make a cake - no occasion and reason. The cupboard revealed that we had only: gluten free marzipan (150 grams), icing sugar, unsalted butter, Valrhona 80% chocolate, eggs and potato flour and 10 butterflies made out of royal icing.... what to do with that????

SMALL GLUTEN-FREE MAZARIN CAKES   

Mix 150 grams of marzipan with 150 grams of icing sugar. Add 100 grams of soft un-salted butter a little at a time. Add 1 dl of eggs (approx. 3 whole eggs) and 25-30 grams of potato flour. Place the dough in small pie trays or cup cake forms. Bake at 200 degrees for 15-20 min.

Anneal the chocolate and cover the cakes with the chocolate and add the decoration of your choice (if any).

Butterfly effect cake (No. 2)

My daughter did NOT understand why she couldn't eat the butterfly cake that I brought to work (see butterfly effect cake (No. 1), so I made her this one:

The cake was half a portion of Lemon Moon Cake. Recipe for a full Lemon Moon:
Whip 250 gram of softened butter with 250 grams of icing sugar. Stir in 250 grams of egg (approx. 5 eggs) a little at a time (don't whip/beat the eggs in!). Add 250 grams of flour and 10 gram of baking powder and add grated zests of 2 lemons.

Bake in a well greased tray for approx. 1 hour at 200 degrees.

Make a syrup of the lemon juice (half juice, half sugar - boil to reduce liquid) and pour over cake went it comes out of the oven.

Cover the cake in royal icing (egg white, icing sugar and a little bit of softened unsalted butter - to make sure that the icing remains soft, and the cake may be cut without splintering).