Plumbers Cake.

This was my first cake Swedish style.

By swedish style I mean with mousses, marzipan, berries and stuff rather than just buttercream (though buttercream is welcome too). It was scary because it means a more unstable cake. But oh how yummy it is.

In this one I had Vanilla bavaroise... which is a type of mousse I guess. It is something that I quite easily could eat by the bucketload. it is not too sweet and the texture is heavenly. perfectly smooth. I am desperately trying to find the recipe that I used and am currently struggling so I will link a different recipe for now and update it if and when I find it. This recipe looks very similar: http://food.ninemsn.com/recipes/other/8338444/vanilla-bavarois

I also had strawberry mousse, but the recipe was not the best so I will not include it here. 

It was my husbands birthday. We have just moved to sweden and bought a 1930's house that is in need of some TLC. But as it is with every new relationship (even one between people and a house) there is some "growing pains". In our case it was the plumbing. 

Without going into too many details(trust me be grateful) We had to change the whole system. Nick was thrown off the deep end... and he came up not only swimming but doing a perfect crawl. He changed the whole system basically by himself. He had some guidance from my brother who happens to live next door, but he read up on it and then did it. Ellie, Penelope and I went to live with my parents for the week where I made this cake as it was Nick's birthday that weekend(yes he spent his weekend knee high in dumpage(the nicest word I could find for what it was). Thank you to my brother and his family for letting him use the shower! He loved the cake. He was so surprised and happy. He probably thought he wasn't getting anything considering the circumstances. I had the MOST fun making it as I got to learn so much about how to make a cake like swedes do it. I'm telling you It ain't easy.

Enjoy.
-J.

P.s the smears on the cake is cocoa powder.... ;-)

Lemon Glaze Cake.

I got this recipe from the Hummingbird bakery cookbook, though I did adjust it slightly as the original recipe required poppy seeds that I did not have at home. And either way I feel they only get stuck in my teeth!

We were going over to our neighbors house. My neighbors also happen to be my brother and his wife. We were going to bring a dessert. SO. Having quite a few lemons that needed using I set to making this wonderful cake. It is perfectly fluffy and moist and sweet and tart at the same time! 

Ingredients
85g unsalted butter
245g caster sugar
grated zest of 1 1/2 lemons
165ml whole milk
235g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 a teaspoon of salt
3 egg whites
Lemon Syrup
juice and zest of 1 lemon
50g caster sugar
100 ml water
Lemon Glaze
Juice of 1 lemon
250g icing sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 170c
2. Beat the butter, sugar and lemon zest together in a large bowl.
3. Slowly add the milk and beat well (don’t worry if it looks slightly split at this stage).
4. In a separate bowl sieve the flour, baking powder and salt. Add this to the butter mixture in 3 stages, beating well after each addition.
5. Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl until they form stiff peaks.
6. Fold this gently into the cake mixture.  DO NOT overmix!
7. Pour into mould (that has been buttered and floured) and bake for 30 - 35 mins until golden and the sponge bounces back when gently pressed.
8. While the cake is baking, make the lemon syrup by adding the sugar, lemon zest, juice and water in a saucepan and gently boil it until it has reduced by half and it's a thin syrup.
9. When the cake is cooked remove from the oven and spoon over the syrup while it is still in the tin and still hot.  
10. Leave to cool in tin for 10 minutes.
11. Turn out onto a wire rack.
12. Make the icing whilst the cake is cooling by mixing the icing sugar and lemon juice together until smooth and glossy. You want it to be thick but still runnable.
13. Once the cake has cooled, spoon over the glaze and let it run down the sides of the cake.

Enjoy.
-J.

Minnie Mouse Cupcakes.

My first "commission". It was so nerve wrecking to hand them over. I didn't have a  camera at the time so I asked if she could take a picture of them for me and she did a wonderful job! This is quite a standard cupcake if you go looking for it on Google pictures but there is a reason why they are popular. 

Because they are so cute!

Enjoy.
-J.

Belle Princess Cake.

This is it. This is the cake that started it all.

This is the cake that fueled a desire to create more... and more... and more...

It was the birthday of Arrwin. Her mother came over to make it as a fun thing to do. If I remember correctly she come over with the sponges already made, which meant all we had to do was decorate. She loved Belle so her mother brought over a belle doll that was broken(had no legs). I happen to be a hairdresser so I came up with the idea of doing an "up-do", a proper one. Then we covered the part that would be in the cake with clingfilm.
After having put the cake together we started carving... and carving... and carving.

This was before I knew that I could save the crumbs for cakepops, which makes me cringe at the waste! 

I had a general idea of what I wanted to do it was just a matter of execution. One of the things that frustrated me the most was that after having held the piping bag for a while the buttercream was going soft. It was difficult to work with. I now know that I need to put the bag down, even put it in the fridge for resting now and then.

This was the result anyway.
I was quite happy with this considering it was my first real decorated cake.

Enjoy.

-J.

My First Wedding Cake.

This was not work.

My husbands best friend was getting married to a girl from Jersey. If you don't know where Jersey is, it's just off the coast of France, but it belongs to the British Isles. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

They wondered if I could decorate their wedding cake. They would order covered cakes from Marks and Spencers and I would simply decorate it. They know their colors (maroon and gold) and their theme. Literature. So I brought my colors and the rest they provided as I couldn't take sugarpaste on the plane. So it was a little of an improvisation job.

This was Nick and I's first vacation together as a married couple. And quite literally the first time I was away from my 2 year old... EVER. Nicks parents came up to help us out with babysitting for the 4 days we would be gone. I was so stressed before the trip. Nothing was going right. And my expectations for the the holiday were very low. I think the cherry on the cake was when we got there and there was no one there to pick us up. I was close to a nervous breakdown. Then we met one of nicks friends at the airport who was renting a car. And from then on our time was spent either on the beach, at an amazing wedding, at amazing restaurants and always with awesome people. 

Now about the cake.

So I started by picking off the little pieces of royal icing that M&S thought would be decorative. This was tedious work as it would leave marks on the cake. So I knew that I would need to cover the cakes again. I had some thought of what I would do but it had to be altered slightly by the BAD finish of the cake. For the amount of money they spent on that cake they didn't get great quality. That's for sure. But I did what I could with it and they were overjoyed with the result. 

I saw one of the books that they would have as a table decoration and immediately thought of it topping the cake. They loved the idea so I went for it and added the rings as they wouldn't have a bride and groom top it. 

The roses were made out of Sugarpaste, not Gumpaste.. Which perhaps gives you an idea of how difficult it was to get them semi-right.

After having worked for quite a few hours the bride and groom said that enough was enough. They didn't want me spending anymore time in the kitchen while everyone else in the wedding party including them were out on the beach. So they dragged me out and what an amazing time we all had!

  

Enjoy.

-J.

Dentists.

 

Perhaps not the best pictures in the world.

 

We used to own a business and we had our offices within a dental clinic. The owners were so sweet. At one point there was one nurse leaving for a new job at the same time as it was the head dentists birthday. So I threw together some cupcakes! 

Must say. These toppers were the most fun I have had making toppers. I mean little dentures???

Yeah. So if there is anyone out there wanting little dentist cupcakes. I would love to make these again!  

Enjoy.

-J.