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...
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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...
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