Cake #8 - Crunchie Cheesecake

"Friends First Friday". - On Fridays during my 365 Cakes / 365 Days challenge I will dedicate my cakes to friends (for one reason or another - they may have a special day just then or they may be special people in general) and/or people who have showed some random act of kindness during the past week. I may have experienced it personally or it may be something picked from the local or global news.

My first Friends First Friday cake I baked for my dear friend Inari. This Friday happened to be her nameday according to the Finnish name day calendar. Inari is one of the founders of our Club Lemon and I bet she was expecting a lemon cake - and I only gave her a smiling Lemon. Lemons don't usually smile but even the most sour Lemon would smile when seeing cake and especially espresso.

The recipe for Crunchie Cheesecake I found at Cadbury's website. There are several tempting gooey, yummy, crunchy chocolaty recipes there... I could visit that site again and again. And again. 

The Crunchie Cheesecake was good and easy to make, too. Even without the Crunchie bars it would be good. Served with fresh berries and ice cream. Or strawberry coulis.

How to Make Your Cake an Internet Celebrity

Cake #7 - Puss Roll

Cats, cats, cats..! On Thursdays during my 365 Cakes / 365 Days challenge I will bake cat-themed cakes. It is not the meaning that the cakes necessarily look like cats as long as they can easily be associated with cats - my cats, famous cats or cats in general - felidae and felis domesticus. 

For my first Thursday cat cake I wanted to make a 'curly-haired copper cat' by experimenting with caramelised sugar. Sometimes a homebaker like me may be busy with other things simultaneously - like getting everything ready for the kids who would be going back to school after the summer holidays the following morning. So I was still up at 1 am trying to finish the cake while checking that the kids' schoolbags were in order. Burning Caramelising sugar in the middle of the night may not be the smartest idea but I did manage to do it great. Or at least fine. Or satisfacto...really. No curls,  but pretty and sharp copper-coloured 'sticks' for the cat's hair and a larger piece of 'lava' for the perfect tail! But the curls will come one day, I promise, and I am dedicated, too, as I am now watching some videos and eventually learning how. Stay tuned!

Puss Roll Swiss Roll

4 eggs

2 dl / 3/4 cup sugar

1,5 dl / ½ cup plain flour
2 tbsp potato or corn flour
3 tbsp dark cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 225C and line an oven tray with baking paper.

2. Beat eggs and sugar until white and airy.

3. Mix flours, cocoa and baking powder and add to the egg-sugar mix.

4. Spoon evenly on the baking tray and bake for about 15 minutes. Let cool.

Filling

1,5 dl / ½ cup Nutella

3 dl / 1 1/4 cups whipped cream 

Topping

5 dl / 2 cups whipped cream with a drop of yellow food colouring

5 dl / 2 cups sugar, caramelised on a pan on low heat until brown and sticky

After the base has cooled, cut the edges to make the sides even.

After spreading Nutella and whipped cream, make a tight roll.

Take spoonfuls of the caramelised sugar very slowly from the pan to create 'yarn' or 'sticks' and a solid larger spoonful for the tail.

I also made the cat's eyes, nose and mouth of the sugar when it was not too sticky yet.

Cake #6 - Banana Loaf with Oats

My Wednesday cakes during my 365 Cakes / 365 Days challenge will be Natural Ingredient / Healthy Cakes. Not that I wouldn't use natural ingredients as much as possible in my baking already but I will try to create cakes which are even more 'natural' and taste and look good, too, without too much sugar, for example, and especially without artificial flavourings. I have to say I am blessed to have a family with no diet restrictions at all (except the odd 'mental allergies' aka dislikes) and I do not need to take any of that into account in my baking so in my case 'healthy' does not necessarily mean a special diet. 

Personally, my most favourite natural ingredients are fresh berries and, to be honest, I would love to use more berries in my baking but very often the cost limits my choices. (no garden, unfortunately!) Red currants look gorgeous on a cheesecake and they taste gorgeous with a cheesecake but 4€ for a box of 125 g is a bit too much, especially when 125 g is way too little for one cheesecake. Whenever I get red currants (or any of those more expensive berries - let's say sea buckthorns) for a reduced price I do buy them and happily use them - a lot! Plenty of vitamin C and plenty of colour therapy!

This Banana Loaf I baked for my first Natural Ingredient Cake may not count as colour therapy (that's why I have the yellow bananas in the background of the picture because a brown loaf on a brown table looked just... brown!) but for energy boost it definitely does. [ I just had a piece and now I am ready to take my son to the shops to buy him school shoes - he hates shopping] Excellent for brunch, tastes yummy with some butter after toasted...

Use the same recipe and bake as muffins (200C for 15 minutes) which go well in the kids' lunchboxes, too!

Banana Loaf with Oats

300 g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

100 g light brown sugar
3 overripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs
100 ml milk
100 g butter, melted

Oats and banana chips

1. Grease a 2 lbs loaf pan and coat it with oats.
2. Preheat oven to 175C / 350F.
3. Mix all dry ingredients together.
4. In another bowl mix together mashed banana (leave a bit lumpy), milk, eggs and melted butter and fold into the dry ingredients trying not to mix to much.
5. Spoon dough into pan.
6. Sprinkle some oats and banana chips on top and bake in the oven for about 35-45 minutes.

7. Let cool before moving from pan and cutting into slices.

Cake #5 - Tribute to Simon

On Tuesday morning I had no clue what my first Humour Cake would be but I strongly believed the idea would pop into my head during the day one way or another. And it did. I was browsing the news and read a piece of gossip regarding the new X Factor UK series 11 which starts this week, and it said Simon Cowell is back judging there. (Yay!) Then I found myself thinking whether or not I should replace my Gary Barlow calendar (hanging on the wall of our downstairs toilet) with a Simon Cowell one and then I finally remembered something from this year's Britain's Got Talent which gave me the idea for this cake... 

(jump to 2:20 if you don't want to watch the whole show)

The cake itself is nothing extraordinary so there is no point giving a detailed recipe. It is a basic sponge filled with raspberry jam and vanilla creme (all home-made, though!). The first layer of topping is made of mixture of white chocolate and melted butter with some icing sugar in it and a drop of red food colouring. The rest is plain icing, parts of which I coloured with black and red food colourings. 

Oh, and then there's chocolate. Curled from a block of dark chocolate with a cheese slicer. The Husband who is a chocolate lover did not want to eat the chocolate-covered parts of the cake. Maybe he does not like his chocolate curled??? 

One Humour, Please!

On Tuesdays The Cat Hairy Baker turns into a Humourist.

The day looks grey, windy and rainy so... one humour, please!

Cake #4 - Lemon Curd & Yogurt Loaf

On Mondays during my 365 Cakes / 365 Days challenge I will be baking a Monday Mood Cake. Simply (not that simple...), I pick a mood and turn it into a cake. The mood can then be (hopefully) seen and recognised from the looks of the cake - or it can be tasted. 

To be honest, for the first Monday Mood Cake I took the easy way out. Sour as I am by nature and a proud member of a ladies's club called Club Lemon, a lemony cake was the obvious choice. I was so expecting life to give me the lemons I needed for the cake but as that did not happen (typical!) I had to walk to the shop in rain and wind and buy the lemons myself! That really got me into the perfect mood for something sour...

Lemon Curd and Yogurt Loaf

200 g butter

200 g granulated sugar

3 eggs

200 g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 dl / ½ cup (Greek) yogurt

1 dl / ½ cup lemon curd

Garnishing

Icing sugar, mint leaves, grated zest of lemon, slices of lemon...

To be served with

Lemon curd and (Greek) yogurt

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C (350 F) and grease and flour (I use dried breadcrumbs) a 2 lbs loaf pan.

2. Combine flour and baking powder in a bowl.
3. Cream together butter and sugar.
4. Mix in eggs.
5. Add the dry ingredients together with the yogurt and mix well.

6. Add the lemon curd using a small spoon, one spoonful at a time mixing just a little so that there will be lumps of lemon curd in the dough.
6. Pour the dough into the pan and bake for about 45 minutes.

7. Let the cake cool completely before garnishing it.

8. Enjoy with lemon curd and yogurt!

Cat and Hidden Cat

Cake #3 - Boston Cake - Traditional Finnish Cinnamon Bun Cake

My theme for Sundays during my 365 Cakes / 365 Days challenge is classic or traditional cakes. Those cakes may be known world-wide or just locally somewhere. I will definitely make all true classics but I am also willing to try something new and extraordinary as long as I am able to get all ingredients needed and they are reasonably priced - no beluga caviar -topped cheesecakes expected (if such a cake happens to be traditional somewhere)! The cakes may be fancy or they may simple. They may be tied to the season like traditional cakes often are, for example, harvesting - or there may be religious symbolism with them, for example, Ramadan or Greek Goddesses. 

For my first Sunday cake I chose Boston Cake, a traditional Finnish Cinnamon Bun Cake the taste of  which is something very traditional and homey for me. Even as a child I used to bake lots of pulla - sometimes 100 cinnamon buns during one baking 'session'. What comes to Boston Cake, I have no clue where the name comes from - I tried to google it but gave up after an hour as I really didn't find any relevant information. Boston Cake seems to have appeared in the Finnish coffee tables after the war, in 1950's and the fillings can vary -  it may be jam, for example - but the most traditional one is this one with cinnamon-sugar-butter -filling. I decorated my cake with icing - more traditional would have been chopped almonds or simply pearl sugar. The latter I have never seen in the Irish supermarkets - have you?

Boston Cake

3 dl / 1 1/4 cup lukewarm milk

25 g fresh yeast (or 1 bag / 7 g fast action dried yeast)

0,5 dl / 1/4 cup sugar

½ tsp ground cardamom

1 egg

100 g melted butter

about 9-10 dl / 4 cups plain flour

Filling

100 g butter

2 tbsp cinnamon

1 dl / 1/3 cup sugar

Glazing

1 egg

Icing

1,5 dl / ½ cup icing sugar

1 tbsp water

1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk.

2. Add sugar, cardamom and egg and mix well.

3. Start adding flour gradually.

4. After you have kneaded in about half of the flour, add melted butter.

5. Knead in more flour until your dough is not sticky any more but still soft. It is better to leave the dough a little too soft than make it too dense as the buns/cake will be too dry and hard after baking.

6. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until double in size, for about half an hour.

7. Line a springform pan ( Ø 28 cm) with baking paper. My favourite way to do this is to wet a piece of baking paper and crumple it into a ball to get rid of the excess water and make it softer so it is easier to line the form.

8. Roll your dough into a rectangle, about 0,5 cm / 1/4" thick.
9. Spread the butter on top and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

10. Roll the dough into a cylinder and then cut it into slices of about 5 cm / 2" long.
11. Place the slices in the pan, side by side but not too tightly to leave some room to rise.
12. Let the cake rise for about half an hour.
13. Preheat the oven to 200C / 390F.
14. Glaze your cake with egg and bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes.

15. Let the cake cool completely - it is easy to remove the cake from the pan either by removing the sides of the springform or just carefully lifting the baking paper together with the cake.
16. Drizzle or pipe the icing on top of your cake and enjoy fresh (or freeze on the day of baking).

Pull out one bun at a time....

...or cut into wedges.  -There are no right or wrong ways to eat the cake!

Cakes #1 and #2 - Birthday Party for the Hubby with Black Heart

Well, The Husband... he is not black-hearted at all, rather the opposite. We just call him black-hearted because he thinks there are no other colours in the world but black. 

Unfortunately there are not too many edible things that would be black but whenever I can, I do cook him black food. - Black pudding, black beans, licorice, salty licorice, cakes burned black in the oven decorated with black icing, pata negra ham, blackberries, back olives and squid ink spaghetti. - However, how consistent he may be with the colour of his clothing, he does not drink his coffee black!

This birthday cake I made for him was a basic chocolate sponge, exactly same recipe I used when making my Chocolate Dream Tree Cake. For filling I used three chopped bananas, 200 g raspberries and whipped cream (of about 250 ml cream). The topping was also whipped cream (500 ml) and icing (coloured with black food colouring) which I piped randomly over the cake and then slightly mixed it with the whipped cream to create a "tie dye" -look.

The second cake I made for The Husband's birthday - for birthday dinner appetizer - was a Smoked Salmon Cheesecake. It is fairly easy to compile (don't be afraid of using gelatine leaves and whipping egg whites!!) and it takes only 3-4 hours to set in the fridge before serving. It looks good on a coffee table, too.

Smoked Salmon Cheesecake

Base
300 g wholewheat soda bread, crumbed
100 g butter, melted

Filling
400 g Philadelphia Salmon & Dill Cream Cheese
200 g creme fraîche
100 g smoked salmon, finely chopped
1-2 pickled dill cucumbers, finely chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
lemon pepper, black pepper
6 gelatine leaves
juice of 1 lime
2 egg whites

Garnishing
Smoked salmon, lime wedges, fresh dill, red onion

1. Mix the breadcrumbs and melted butter together and press firmly on the base of a springform pan covered with baking parchment. Put in the fridge while you make the filling.

2. Soak the gelatine leaves in water for 5 minutes.
3. Mix together cream cheese, creme fraîche, chopped salmon, pickled dill cucumber and red onion, and season with pepper to taste.
4. Heat the lime juice together with the gelatine leaves in microwave so that the gelatine leaves melt. Add to the cream cheese mix.
5. Whip the egg whites until stiff and  fold them very gently into the cheese mixture trying to keep it ‘airy’.

6. Pour the filling on the crust and chill in the fridge for at least three hours until firm.
7. Remove the firm cake from the pan very, very carefully on a serving plate and decorate it with smoked salmon strips, dill, lime wedges, red onion...
8. Serve with salad as appetizer or enjoy with your afternoon coffee or even brunch.

Oreo Cheese Cake

While focusing on planning my 365 Cakes / 365 Days Challenge I have been trying my best not to bake any cakes before Saturday. Until on Wednesday I popped into Tiger Shop and found the cutest ever chalkboard for just 3€ and Oreo-kind-of cookies for just 1€/pack. Immediately I saw in my mind something which is now on the picture above. Cheese cake with biscuit crumbs for Thursday treat  for the family and then absolutely no baking but pure managing-your-challenge on Friday... (to be seen)

Oreo Cheese Cake

Crust:
150g Digestive cookies, crumbed
75g butter, melted

Filling:
200g Philadelphia Cream Cheese (or equivalent, I use quite often more affordable cream cheese brands of Lidl, Tesco or Aldi)
1 dl / 1/3 cup granulated sugar
200g pack of Oreo (or equivalent) cookies - save a couple for decorating the cake
1 tsp vanilla sugar
5 gelatine leaves
3 tbsp milk
3 egg whites

Decoration:
Cookie crumbs, fresh berries, chocolate...

1. Mix the digestive cookie crumbs and melted butter.  Press the mixture into the bottom of a spring form (23cm in diameter), base covered with baking parchment. Let the crust cool and rest in the fridge while you make the filling.
2. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes.
3. Mix the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla sugar.
4. Heat up the milk and melt the soaked gelatine leaves in the hot milk and pour the smooth liquid into the cheese mixture. Mix well.
5. Add the biscuit crumbs.
6. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them very gently into the cheese&cookie crumb mixture trying to keep it ‘airy’.
7. Pour the filling on the crust and chill in the fridge for at least four hours until firm.
8. Remove the firm cake from the pan very, very carefully on a serving plate and decorate it with biscuit crumbs, fresh berries, chocolate...

365 Cakes / 365 Days

The best challenges are the ones with a bit of craziness involved. The ones with which you are not only challenging yourself but also bringing joy to others around you.

365 Cakes / 365 Days starting 23 August. Stay tuned.

Pour Ma Bébé

Exactly twenty years ago today, I got to know I was to become a mother. Already on that very day both my husband and I had a strong feeling that this first Bébé of ours is a girl. And we certainly had a baby girl 8½ months later! Now, at the age of 19 she is tall and beautiful,  wonderful and gorgeous, and she has ambition and self-discipline. Being my daughter, she cannot resist a good pastry, though. After eating a huge piece of cake she may go to the gym but that is another story which certainly has nothing to do with my baking blog... 

So today, I baked these Bébé Pastries for my first baby - pour ma bébé. 

Unfortunately stories tell very little about the origin of these pastries. Why are they called Bébés? In Finland they have "always" existed, since 1910's according to YLE (Finnish broadcasting company) website (in Finnish). They may or may not have a French origin - obviously when you think about the name, but again, the baker who created them might just have been a Francophile.

The main thins is, like with all pastries, that they are good, they are yummy and they are pretty. Traditionally they are pink and small petits fours but next time I just may make them black and huge with a licorice sauce filling...

***

Bébé Pastries (16 small, about 5 cm Ø)

Dough

120 g butter

1,25 dl / ½ cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar

1 large egg

2,5 dl / 1 cup plain flour

1. Preheat the oven to 175C / 350F.

2. Cream together butter, sugar and vanilla sugar.

3. Add egg and mix well.

4. Add flour.

5. Wrap the dough in cling film and put in the fridge for about an hour to harden.

6. Roll small balls of the dough and place them in a muffin tins. Line each tin with the dough.

7. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes.

Filling

Raspberry Jam

Vanilla Creme

1,25 dl / ½ cup fresh cream

1 egg yolk

1 tbsp cornflour

1 tsp vanilla sugar

½ dl / 1/4 cup sugar

50 g butter

1. Heat cream, egg yolk and cornflour in a pan so that the mixture thickens but does not boil. Let cool.

2. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla sugar in a bowl.

3. Mix the creamy sauce and butter and sugar mixture together until smooth.

Icing

2,5 dl /  1 cup icing sugar

2 tbsp water or lemon juice

a few drops of red food colouring

Sprinkles

To compile the pastries

Spread about ½ tsp of raspberry jam in the bottom of each pastry. Then add about 1-2 tsps of vanilla creme. Let set about 15 minutes, preferably in the fridge. 

When set, spread pink icing on top of each pastry and decorate with sprinkles of your choice.

Say Cheese...Cake!

When there is serious business going on you really should remember the power of humour, even when it goes to the black side or gets too - cheesy. Sometimes literally cheesy.

During the past week certain exports from Finland to Russia were barred and when reading the Finnish newspapers, anybody could see there was a specific cheese stealing the show. This Finnish cheese called Oltermanni has been very popular in Russia and suddenly the Finnish dairy producer Valio had their storages full of it - wrapped in Russian labels, that is. Finnish supermarkets bought the cheese and sold them to Finnish consumers who were extremely happy to get it half price. The cheese got a nickname 'Putin's Cheese' and in Facebook there has been pictures going around where the Finnish and Russian presidents wear blocks of cheese as hats at their meeting last week...

These pieces of news, headlines and jokes became my inspiration for this Cheese Cake. 

Creating a cheesy look was easier than I thought. A basic sponge, some filling and buttercream (I hate fondant icing!) in two different shades of yellow on top and that was it. Little bit of melted chocolate to pipe some main elements of the original logo to sort of make it recognizable. Then a moment of hesitance as I don't know any Russian language... I triple-checked some words and therefore I am quite certain "сыр" does mean cheese. (If not, please let me know.) First I thought I would use just some random Cyrillic letters on my cake but then remembered a recent incident and decided not to. Some time ago Aku Ankka, the Finnish Donald Duck Magazine had had a drawing of a Chinese pot on their cover page - with some Chinese characters nobody had checked. Only after the magazine came out the editors got to know the characters actually meant sh***ing...

***

Sponge

200 g soft butter

200 g granulated sugar

4 eggs

200 g self-raising flour

1,5 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp cream or milk

1. Heat the oven to 190 degrees C (375 F) and grease and flour (I use dried and ground breadcrumbs) a 15 cm round cake pan.

2.  Cream together butter and sugar.

3. Add eggs and mix well.

4. Mix together the dry ingredients and add them together with cream or milk.

5. Add the dry ingredients and cream or milk.

6. Pour the mixture into the pan. 

7. Bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes until solid in the middle.

8. Let cool completely on a rack.

Filling

Lemon Curd

Juice and zest of one lemon

2 dl / 1 3/4 cups water

2 tbsp corn flour

0,5 dl / 1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 egg yolks

1 tbsp butter

1. Mix all ingredients together.

2. Heat on medium heat until the mixture thickens but do not boil.

3. Let cool completely.

4 tbsp Greek yogurt or whipped cream

Buttercream Icing

200 g butter

400 g icing sugar

1-2 tbps cream 

yellow food colouring

1. Beat the butter and icing sugar in a bowl until soft. 

2. Add 1 tsp yellow food colouring and then cream drop by drop to make sure the mixture does not become too loose.

3. Take ½ of the mixture and add another tsp of yellow food colouring to reach a darker shade of yellow.

Optional 

Some dark chocolate, icing sugar, fondant icing and food colourings to create a cheese brand you like

To compile the cake

1. Cut the cake into three layers. 

2. Spread lemon curd and yogurt/whipped cream onto the first and second layers. 

3. Place the third layer on top. 

4. Wipe all excess filling off from the sides as otherwise buttercream does not stick properly.

5. Spread the lighter yellow buttercream on the top of the cake and some on the upper part of the side. 

6. Spread the darker yellow buttercream upwards on the sides of the cake to the point where it meets the lighter yellow. The darker yellow is supposed to look like the plastic wrap around the cheese and the lighter yellow the actual cheese.

7. With a wooden stick, stick small (or big) holes on top of the cake to create a cheesy look.

Optional: Add your desired 'brand elements' - colours, logos, writing...

Mud Cake with Spicy Fudge

A perfect cake should always be baked until a stick comes out of it clean. Except a mud cake. A perfect cake should always be spongy and airy. Except a mud cake. A perfect cake should always be tall and handsome. Except a mudcake. - Be a flat, thick, gooey and messy mudcake and everybody will love you the way you are! Never change, be yourself. For a charming and festive look, wear a spicy fudge. Sprinkle your favourite chocolate on top. Or even berries. On a hot day demand ice cream. On a cool day demand whipped cream. On a rainy day demand coffee and company. 

Mud Cake

150 g butter
4,5 dl / 1 3/4 cups sugar
1,5 dl / ½ cup dark cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract / 2 tsp vanilla sugar
3 eggs
2,5 dl / 1 cup plain flour

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and flour (I use dried and ground breadcrumbs) a 28 cm round spring form.
2. Melt the butter and mix in sugar, vanilla and cocoa powder.
3. Add eggs one at a time and mix well.
4. Add flour and mix until the batter is smooth.
5. Pour the batter into the spring form and bake in the oven about 20 minutes. Let cool completely.

Fudge

2,5 dl / 1 cup (double) cream
2 tbsp treacle or dark syrup
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
250 g milk chocolate

1. Heat the cream, syrup and spices in a pan until just about to boil. 
2. Remove pan from heat.
3. Add milk chocolate and mix well until chocolate has melted.
4. Pour the fudge over the cake and let cool.

Decorate the cake with chopped chocolate of your choice and/or berries. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.

I had just recently bought this Finnish Fazer Blueberry chocolate and used it together with fresh blueberries to decorate the cake. 

Party Time

My son's confirmation party, a week ago... Despite the last minute hassle - my husband baking baguettes at 2 a.m. in the morning, because of my time management earlier that night hadn't been the best possible - everything was ready in time. Everything was indeed ready exactly one minute before the first guests were to arrive! 

We had cakes, cakes and even more cakes - that was what the party boy had asked me to make. We also had cookies, pulled pork sandwiches, mini quiches and cheese croissants. Everything I had planned plus a beautiful carrot cake with an amazing chocolate tree made by my 11-year-old daughter and home-made 'oreo' cookies also made by her.  

When the party started, behind was quite a few nights when I did not sleep more than five hours and even when sleeping, I was piping icing and soaking gelatine leaves in my dreams - but loving every moment both awake and in these dreams. This was my challenge and I truly enjoyed it! The moments of starting from scratch, the heat, the sweat, the numerous visits to the shop to buy 'one more pack of icing sugar'...

At the actual party I remember once sitting down with a piece of cake but then I had to get up right away to welcome some guests and did not find my plate ever since. Luckily we had lots of leftovers so I was able to have many pieces of cake in quiet and peace the day after!

I was happy I had tested each and every recipe beforehand (all recipes can be found from earlier posts in this blog) so I knew what I was making and what could possibly go wrong. To my surprise nothing really went wrong, that is, turned into something inedible. My hidden heart cake did sink a lot when I got it out of the oven but the black heart inside was fine so I just cut the sunken part off and put icing on top. The layers of some of the cakes were not perfectly measured and cut, and my Chocolaty Celtic Cross was done in a hurry and looked a bit soggy, but at least it stayed in one piece when I lifted it onto the cake from the silicone mat where I had piped it.

To summarize, +30'C heatwave was the only real risk. No whipped cream and no fish or prawns could be served, unfortunately. Buttercream worked great! Nobody got food poisoning. Cat hair? - Maybe somewhere. - Happy Baker - Happy Guests. And happy cats when they finally got their house back after our 45 guests (two of them were dogs!) had left.

Left: Carrot Cake with Buttercream and Milk Chocolate Tree. Middle, front: Lime Cheesecake with Red Currants. Middle, back: Caramel&Vanilla Ombre Cake with Black Currants. Right: Chocolate Mousse Cake with Celtic Cross made of Dark Chocolate and brushed with a Silver Pen.

Chocolate Mousse Cake with Celtic Cross made of Dark Chocolate and brushed with a Silver Pen.

Caramel&Vanilla Ombre Cake with Black Currants.

Left: Lemony Blueberry Cake. Right: Alexander Pastries.

Left: Hidden Heart Cake with Liquorice Icing. Middle: Lemony Blueberry Cake. Right: Alexander Pastries.

Pulled-Pork Sandwiches. Home-made Pulled Pork and Coleslaw. Home-made Baguettes. Sour Garlic Cucumbers.

Left: Mini Quiches filled with Goats Cheese&Tomato. Right: Mini Quiches filled with Smoked Reindeer and Horseradish Cream Cheese.

Front: Cheese Croissants filled with Emmental Cheese&Ramiro Paprika. Cheese Croissants filled with Smoked Ham and Blue Cheese.