Category: Cakes

Strawberry White Chocolate Cookies

This strawberry white chocolate cookie was a happy find on PInterest.  The recipe is from Vera (from Oh my god chocolate desserts blog).  I have adapted a few things, and added some comments. They are beautiful and chewy, especially when still warm.  I froze most of the second batch and use them for lunch boxes or afternoon snack.

The recipe is VERY easy to make.

Ingredients
  • 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt (remove if using salted butter)
  • 1/4 cup  butter-softened
  • 120 g cream cheese
  • 3/4 cup caster sugar (1/2 cup is probably enough, I find them a bit sweet)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup chopped fresh strawberries
  • 2 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 150 g white chocolate-chopped
Method
  1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
  2. Pour fresh lemon juice over chopped strawberries, drain them after a few minutes. Chop in pieces as convenient (not less than one centimetre)
  3. Beat butter with sugar and cream cheese until it’s light and fluffy.  Cokies aux fraises et chocolat blanc
  4. Add egg and vanilla and mix well.
  5. Toss together 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, salt, chopped white chocolate, chopped stawberries and baking powder.
  6. Add flour mixture to the wet mixture and fold in gently.  Either use a large scoop or your hand.
  7. Drop heaping tablespoon of batter onto a baking sheet covered with baking paper. Make sure to leave a couple centimetres space in between.
  8. Set the cookies in the refrigerator for 5-10 minutes before baking.
  9. You can choose to bake them for 13-15 minutes until the edges become golden brown, they will be very chewy and quite friable, I baked my second round with spots of golden brown over the top, it was a bit easier to handled and when cold they are more tasty (more cooked).
  10. Transfer the baking paper to the cooling rack (slide it).  Let the cookies cool a few minutes and them remove from the baking paper.

Crepes

This recipe is the one I grew up with and cook for my family.  The recipe calls for beer which lighten the batter and allows for thin crepes.  The alcohol disappear during cooking.

I recommend a crepe pan.  I have tried in other

poele a crepe
Crepe pan

fry-pans, I can tell you, it is not easy because of the high edges and because your pan must strictly be not sticky and not scratched.

The crepes recipe below calls for a resting time of 2 hours, if you don’t have that time in front of you, it will also work, the crepes will be thicker.  If you have no beer or prefer not to use beer, use water and milk.  Crepes are very forgiving in terms of ratios.  Careful not using only milk or your crepes will be brittle. If you increase the quantity of eggs, your crepes will be quite thick and filling.

Ingredients:

This will easily serve 4 people for dessert. Left overs can be covered and placed in the fridge.

  • 500 g of plain flour
  • 4 eggs (depending on size)
  • 1 beer (300 ml)
  • 1/2 cup oil (sunflower)
  • 1/2 L milk
  • water

Method:

  1. Place the flour in a large bowl, make a hole (we all it a well in French) in the middle and place in it, the eggs, oil, beer and milk.
  2. Mix with a whisk until smooth.  You may have a few small lumps, don’t worry to much at this stage.  The batter will be quite thick, you want to make it thinner by adding water, the consistency must be the one a drinking yogurt.

pate a crepe

  1. Let it rest for at least two hours.
  2. Get yourself ready to cook, things can go quickly, get organised, everything must be in close reach.

Cooking crepe

  1. To cook, use crepe pan (s).  Heat up the pan, when hot pour 2/3 of a ladle in the pan, by turning your wrist (while holding the pan), spread the batter over the bottom of the pan.  Pour out the excess if too really too much. Pop any bubbles if they form.
  2. Cook until the sides are brown AND the bottom is fully dry (no wet spots), turn over, cook for a bit less.  Transfer to a plate.
Now 3 MAJOR tips:
  • The first crepe if most of the time a write off (for the cook)
  • If you pan needs a bit of greasing, cut a potato and stick the section cut at the end of a fork.  Place the flat edge in oil then “paint” the bottom of the fry-pan.  This method will limit the amount of grease you use and avoid using multiple absorbent paper sheets. If you have a piece of lard, it works perfectly well too.

    crepe oil as necessary
    Tip – use a cut potato to grease your pan
  • The heat under the fry-pan will need adjusting, somewhere between low and high.  It will take a few crepes to get there.

To serve

The most simple fillings are:

  • white sugar with (optional) a dash of lemon juice (yum!)
  • soft brown sugar
  • jam
  • honey
  • lemon curd
  • chocolate / Nutella.

One crepe recipe which became quite famous is “Crepes Suzettes”, this requires a little more work.

Many of you would have seen crepes filled and then folded in two and then further folded to form a triangle.  This is not the case everywhere.  In my family, we rolled them, much more fun especially when you are a kid!

Keep the crepes warm by covering them with some aluminium foil and placing them in a warm oven (switched off).

crepe pliage triangle   crepe roulee

manger des crepes

Flourless raspberry, almond and chocolate cake

The recipe for this flourless raspberry, almond and chocolate cake was created out of a test I did one night some eight years ago.  I had completely forgotten about it, until I visited the Orange Grove market a year ago where the same cakes in individual portions are sold.

When I first made this cake, we lived in Bondi Beach.  I remember because it became the favourite after diner snack of a Swedish flatmate at the time, when she left, she specifically asked for the recipe (which I gave her).

Now, more important for some of you, this cake has no flour! If you run out of almond meal as happens to me from time to time, you can swap for hazelnut meal, I tried, it works!

Ingredients:

Makes a 20 cm ring cake.

  • 40 g butter
  • 2 tablespoon cocoa powder
  • 100 g dark cooking chocolate
  • 1/2 cup of buttermilk
  • 2 eggs
  • 50 g of caster sugar
  • 75 g of almond meal
  • 1 cup of frozen raspberries

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 160°C, line the bottom of a 20 cm diameter (or close to 20 cm) circular tin.
  2. Melt the chocolate and butter together.
  3. Add one after the other one, mixing well in between: the sugar, cocoa powder, and buttermilk.
  4. Now, add the egg yolks one at the time keeping the eggwhites in a separate bowl.
  5. Add the almond meal.
  6. Beat the egg white to snow and gently fold in.
  7. Pour the batter in the tin and spread delicately the raspberries on top.
  8. Bake until the centre is settled (no longer wobbly).For the baking the key is to cook slowly to prevent burning.
  9. Remove from the oven and allow to cool down completely before removing the cake from the tin.
  10. Ice with icing sugar.

raspberry chocolate buttermilk

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chocolate prune brownie

This chocolate prune brownie is a  recipe from Bourke St bakery (the Ultimate Baking Companion).  the brownie is deliciously moist.  if you have a very sweet taste and love very strong chocolate brownie, keep the recipe as such.  Otherwise , use half to 2/3 of the sugar and only 200 g of chocolate.

A couple important comments :

  • Respect the cooking time
  • You may have to decrease the oven if the brownie starts to darken on the top for the last 1/2 h or so.

Serves 32 (because it is so sweet and so strong in chocolate!)

A recipe from Bourke Street Bakery.

Ingredients

  • 300 g pitted prunes, halved
  • 200 ml brandy, cognac or hot black tea
  • 55 g plain flour
  • 40 g unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 300 g good-quality dark chocolate (55% cocoa)
  • 80 g unsalted butter
  • 300 g caster (superfine) sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 100 g sour cream
  • 145 g dark chocolate melts (buttons) (55% cocoa)

    Method

    1. Place the prunes in a bowl and pour over the brandy, cognac or tea. Cover and set aside to soak for 3 days.

    2. Preheat the oven to 170°C (325F/Gas 3). Grease a 20 x 30 x 4cm rectangular cake tin and line the base and sides with baking paper.

    3. Put the chocolate, butter and sugar into a stainless steel bowl and sit over a saucepan of simmering water – making sure the base of the bowl does not touch the water. Stir for 10 minutes, or until the chocolate has melted. Allow to cool.

    4. Sift the flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder into a separate bowl.

    5. Transfer chocolate mixture to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

    6. Add the flour mixture, mix to combine, then add the sour cream, chocolate melts and prunes with the remaining soaking liquid and mix until just combined.

    7. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 1 hour, or until just set. Place your hand on top of the brownie in the centre and wobble to feel if it is set.

    8. Allow to cool completely before turning out of the tin. Use a hot knife to cut into squares.

    The brownies can be wrapped in plastic wrap and stored for up to 4 days at room temperature.

Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins

This Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins recipe from Bourke St bakery (the Ultimate Baking Companion) is a winner! Light, with chocolate and raspberries (what else?) and easy to make.

A couple important comments :

  • The recipe calls for large muffin trays, it is definitely the very large ones! The large ones you may have at home are perfect too, you will just end up with more muffins!
  • Use good quality muffin paper cases as the mix is quite liquid and otherwise will end up soaking the paper and the muffin will stick to the tin, it will be harder to remove them.

Makes 12 (or about 20 if you use the “home size” muffin trays)

A recipe from Bourke Street Bakery

Ingredients:

• 400 g  plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 300 g caster sugar
• 310 g unsalted butter
• 480 ml buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 225 g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 225 g raspberries, fresh or frozen
• 55 g raw sugar
• Icing sugar, for dusting

Method
  1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Lightly grease a 12-hole muffin tin and line with paper cases.
    Sift the flour and baking paper into a bowl and add the sugar, mixing well to combine.
  2.  Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat, then remove from the heat and stir in the buttermilk. Using a whisk stir in the eggs to combine. Pour over the dry ingredients and whisk to combine. Use a large spoon to gently fold through the chocolate and raspberries. Don’t overmix.
  3. Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin tins. Sprinkle the tops with raw sugar. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for 20-25 minutes. For smaller ones, cook for around 10 -15 minutes. It may be necessary to drop the temperature about 10 minutes before the end of baking time if the muffins are starting to brown on top.
  4.  To test if the muffins are done, push the top gently to feel that it is firm. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before eating. Dust with icing sugar to serve.

muffin

 

Portuguese custard tarts

These little Portuguese custard tarts are light, perfect for entertaining, be careful, they fly away! To make them, just use your larger size muffin trays!

Ingredients

  • 1 quantity of puff pastry – about 250 g, the recipe is covered separately if you are ready to give it a go.
  • 1 egg
  • coarse raw sugar
  • 1 quantity of crème patissiere
For the crème patissiere:
  • 1/2 L of milk
  • 4 eggs yolks
  • vanilla essence or seeds from a vanilla bean
  • 60 g of plain flour
  • 60 g of white sugar

Another version of creme patissiere (used as much as the previous one, it is a matter of taste) contains cornflour (maizena).  The method is exactly the same, using the cornflour instead of the flour.  This recipe call for 40 g of butter to be added at the end outside of the fire, just before transferring to the container.  It gives it a nice finish taste (richer).  For this version, use 1/2 L of milk, 1/2 vanilla pod or good quality vanilla extract, 60 g corn flour, 100 g sugar, 100 g egg yolks, 40 g butter.

Method

For the crème patissière:

  1. Bring to the boil the milk and vanilla
  2. In the meanwhile, beat the egg white, sugar and flour together
  3. Pour a little milk over the egg mix while continuously mixing, then slowly pour back all of that mix in the saucepan with the remaining milk still mixing and cook on a slow fire. the mix will thicken.  Remove when it starts to boil.
  4. Pour into a plastic container and cover with a plastic film directly on top of the custard to avoid the forming of a skin.
  5. Cool quickly.

For the tartlets

  1. Warm the oven up on 180°C
  2. Roll the puff pastry to about 3 mm thick, you will need to use a little flour to prevent from sticking
  3. Cut squares to fit into a hole of your muffin tray (no need to butter the tray, there is already plenty butter in the puff pastry! it will not stick.)
  4. Place the squares at the bottom of the holes
  5. Fill with crème patissiere almost to the top
  6. Beat the egg in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of water (or about), use a brush to brush the edges of the pastry with the egg-wash (do not egg wash the crème patissiere)
  7. Sprinkle a little coarse raw sugar over the egg wash
  8. Place in the oven, cook until golden brown on the edges about 20 minutes
  9. Remove from the oven, turn the muffin trays over a cooling rack, the tartlets will pop out, some may need a bit of help, let them cool down.

Enjoy!

 

Crocodile Birthday Cake

This crocodile birthday cake can be done in one baking, the sugar rush is quite controlled, even parents love it!

With young children birthday cakes, most of the time, the birthday cakes end up in the bin. If there is an icing, they go for that only.  This time the icing is made of mascarpone and a little (only) icing sugar, it is actually delicious!

Preparation

I advise taking a large sheet of paper, a big pen and your baking tin (here a roasting pan) and start drawing options. In the end, I chose between a curly crocodile and a straight one (2/3 width for the body, 1/3 width for the tail).

reine de Saba crocodile

Reine de Saba (Queen of Sheba Cake)

This is the base recipe. I would double for an afternoon tea cake. For my crocodile, I multiplied the proportions by 4.

 Ingredients
  • 75 g of white or caster sugar
  • 50 g of plain flour
  • 1/3 sachet of raising powder or 1/3 teaspoon if using it from the box
  • 75 g of dark cooking chocolate (if you are using a 70% cocoa chocolate, decrease the chocolate quantity to 60 g, it would be too strong for children).
  • 60 g of butter
  • 2 egg yolks and  2 egg white beaten to snow.
Method
  1. Heat the oven to 180 °Celsius.
  2. Butter and flour a tin, or butter and line.
  3. Melt the butter and chocolate together.
  4. Mix in the sugar, then the egg yolks one at the time.
  5. Add the flour and raising powder together, being careful not to create any lumps.
  6. Fold in the egg whites (in snow) gently.
  7. Transfer to the baking tin and insert in the oven.
  8. Cook until dry in the center (20 to 30 min depending on ovens and thickness of the cake in the tin)

Decoration

Using the model cut the cake to shape. Place on a long dish or like me, just tape two pieces of cardboard together and cover (and tape underneath) with baking paper.

Green Icing

My icing was based on mascarpone, a bit of icing sugar (to your taste,  not too much) and some green food colorant. You will need either a stand mixer or some beaters or even a good whisks.  Once well mixes, spread evenly with a flat cake spatula.

Spine butter cream

The spine was butter cream. 125 g of soft butter, 1/2 cup of icing sugar and a mix of green food colorant with a point of red (to make it a different green than the body). Mix well again with your stand mixer, whisk or electrical beaters. Use a piping bag to make the spine.

making of crocodile cake

Eyes, claws and teeth

Roll some white fondant and cut to shape, they will stick by themselves on the mascarpone “icing”. For the middle of the egg, I had some mini smarties handy.  You could also use a couple sultanas.

The crocodile fairly shorter!

reduced crocodile cake

Chocolate Marble Cake

Having chocolate marble cake when I was a child was a treat, I would eat along the different colours keeping the chocolate bit for the end. This cake is easy to make and is great as an afternoon tea cake or sliced for lunch box treat (cell wrap the slices individually, freeze and place frozen in lunch boxes, it will be unfrozen by the time the child gets to it).

Ingredients

  • 100 g of chocolate 64 to 70% cocoa
  • 180 g butter melted
  • 150 g of brown sugar (cassonade in French)
  • a drop of vanilla essence
  • 4 eggs
  • 200 g of self raising flour or 200 g of plain flour and 1 heaped teaspoon of raising powder (if using raising powder in sachet, one sachet).

Method

  1. Butter and flour well your tins. Warm up the oven on 180°C.
  2. Mix the sugar and butter well, then mix in the egg yolks one at the time, add the vanilla.
  3. Mix in the flour and raising powder and divide in two bowls.
  4. Melt the chocolate.  In one of the bowl, add the melted chocolate.
  5. Beat the egg white to snow. Divide in each of the bowls and fold gently.
  6. Pour in the tins alternating the mixes.
  7. Bake for about 45 minutes until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out dry. Then turn on a cooling rack.
Great pattern of the chocolate marble cake
Great pattern of the chocolate marble cake

Sticky Date Pudding

This sticky date pudding is a recipe from the Country Women’s Association of Australia.  The book it is in, is called “Country Classic”.  The CWAA as it is known here does a lot of baking, but not only baking, they have  general family centered objectives.

Here is their recipe.  It is easy to make and quite rapid. If you ever tasted a sticky date pudding in a restaurant, the home made version is 10 times better!

Small warning, it is very sweet! but not sickening sick.

Ingredients
  • 1 cups dried pitted dates, coarsely chopped
  • 1 1/4 cups water
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 60 g butter
  • 3/4 cup caster sugar
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla 
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cups self-raising flour

Sauce:

  • 1 cup soft brown sugar
  • 125 g butter
  • 150 ml cream
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Method
  1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Grease and flour a tin.
  2. Place dates in a small saucepan with the water.  Bring to the boil.  Cook until combined.
  3. Beat remaining ingredients and add to the dates.  Mix well.
  4. Pour into prepared tin.
  5. Bake for 25 minutes or until cooked
  6. For the sauce, combine all ingredients in a saucepan and boil for 5 minutes. Cool down slightly and pour over the pudding to serve.

Serve with whipped cream.

Puppy Dog birthday Cake

Recipe for the cake- Chocolate Marble Cake

I used three times the proportion of this recipe for the puppy dog cake.  This recipe makes a loaf cake.  it is a great afternoon tea cake!

Ingredients:
  • 100 g of chocolate 64 to 70% cocoa
  • 180 g butter melted
  • 150 g of brown sugar (cassonade in French)
  • a drop of vanilla essence
  • 4 eggs
  • 200 g of self raising flour or 200 g of plain flour and 1 heaped teaspoon of raising powder (if using raising powder in sachet, one sachet).
Method:
  1. Butter and flour well your tins. Warm up the oven on 180°C.
  2. Mix the sugar and butter well, then mix in the egg yolks one at the time, add the vanilla.
  3. Mix in the flour and raising powder and divide in two bowls.
  4. Melt the chocolate.  In one of the bowl, add the melted chocolate.
  5. Beat the egg white to snow. Divide in each of the bowls and fold gently.
  6. Pour in the tins alternating the mixes.
  7. Bake for about 45 minutes until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out dry. Then turn on a cooling rack.

Concept

For this puppy dog birthday cake you will need two bowls, one for the body, one for the head. then four ramequins or cake rims.  If you google puppy dog cakes on the web or search for this on P interest, you will find that concept (but not the recipes).

The cake here was for 20 children, quite a few parents had some too.

puppy dog concept

Decoration

Ingredients:
  • White fondant (you can use the shop one), plan for 1 kg to be comfortable
  • Food colouring (red, blue,yellow)
  • Corn flour
  • Thin gloves (to prevent having coloured hands)
  • strawberry or apricot jam, heated up and diluted if required (must be able to brush it)
  • Marzipan: 70 g of almond meal, 70 g of icing sugar, food colouring (pink here), about 1/2 egg white
  • Small cupcake decorations to decorate the collar.
Method

When the cakes are cold, place them on the serving dish in their final position.  You can use a chopping board covered in baking paper or aluminium foil.

Rollcake decorating tip out the white fondant on a non stick surface, I use a silicone rolling mat (in green on the photo).  To help prevent the fondant to stick to the rolling-pin and mat, place corn flour in a bowl nearby and use as you would use dusting flour.

Before covering a piece (whatever the colour) with fondant, you need to brush it with the warm jam, this will be your “glue”.  Do this only one piece at the time.

Place the piece to cover at height, if you have a cake decorating lazy Susan, this is perfect, otherwise use a tall cylindrical plastic jar (like me) or glass jar.

Brush the jam, transfer the fondant. Trim the bottom excesses.  With your hands, gently shape the fondant to the cake’s shape.  Use corn flour (a touch) on your hands if necessary to prevent sticking/help smoothing.  I left a little bit of fondant tucked underneath (I did not cut the top of the cake flat).

Do so for the body and head sections.

Prepare some brown fondant: in a small bowl mix about 1 teaspoon of red with a few drops of blue until purple. Add some yellow, you will get a brown colour.  In terms of fondant quantity, you would need the equivalent of a 250 g block of butter to be comfortable.  Put your gloves on.  Mix to the fondant a bit of colouring at the time until obtaining the desired shade of brown. It will be very sticky, at the end, add some corn flour to stiffen a bit.

You will need to brush jam on the bottom of each new piece of fondant , but very lightly to avoid the jam to stick out.

Roll small balls of fondant (between pea size to walnut size) and place randomly to make the dog coat.

For the ears, you can choose to alter a bit the brown colour.  Then use 2 large walnut size balls, place side by side on the mat and roll at the same time to obtain very similar shapes. Place the ears.

For the collar, roll the marzipan with you hand in a little snake, flatten a bit and place between the two main cakes.  For the tail, prepare in a similar way the shape of the tail.  Then roll it into some brown fondant and place on the cake.

For the eyes, use blue colouring or a mix and mix to a very small quantity of fondant.  Again roll two pea size balls at the same time and place on the cake.

For the nose, I used marzipan (I had run out of fondant all together), darkened the hue and used pieces of lollies from the lolly jar for the nostrils.  I used a toothpick to hold it in place.

With a dry kitchen brush, brush away all the excess corn flour.

Cover with cell wrap and leave at room temperature until the party.

Cake wrapped upo

 

 

 

Kids Birthday Cakes

Choosing a Birthday Cake…

Kids birthday cakes, for me, have to tick a few boxes:

  • For the evening of the birthday if not the party day, a simple shape cake, for the child’s party, a party cake!
  • Most obviously, the flavour has to please the birthday person,
  • The cake must not be too sweet,
  • The cake must not be such that the children will only eat the icing or topping and leave the rest,
  • The cake has to be made from scratch,
  • The cake must not create too much wastage in its making,
  • The cake must be tasty even for adults, and
  • All (or about all) the cake must go!

Where I grew up, our birthday cakes were pretty much all the time a type of sponge cake with a chocolate ganache or chesnut cream filling and chocolate ganache cover.  There were no fancy shapes, I would not even have thought this an option to be honest!

Now, and maybe it is also a cultural difference, my children request cakes in the shape of animals or cartoon heroes (so far).

Successful Cakes

Below are a few of the cakes I made, there will be more over time, for my children or other’s. For some, the recipe is on the blog.

Peppa Pig Birthday Cake
Peppa Pig Birthday Cake

Peppa Pig cake.  This cake consisted of a light genoise (kind of sponge cake) filled with a creme patissiere containing pieces of strawberries.  The icing was a butter cream icing (not too thick).

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_4397
Puppy Dog Birthday Cake

This puppy was made of 6 cakes of chocolate marble cake, put together, the collar is made of marzipan, so is the tail which was covered with the brown fondant.  The brown colours were obtained using the primary colours, my tip: just make sure you make enough initially, it is quite hard to make exactly the same brown twice! The great thing with this cake is that it will not take all the place in your fridge (it does not need to be kept in the fridge).

 

crocodile birthday cake
crocodile birthday cake

This crocodile birthday cake hides a Reine de Saba, which is a chocolate cake. Although some more recent recipe of Reine de Saba of flourless, this older recipe of Reine de Saba has some flour and egg white, the cake is light.  The icing is a mix of mascarpone and icing sugar with food colouring. The spine is a butter cream.  The white is white fondant.

 

 

kitty cat birthday cake

This kitty cat birthday cake is made from two microwave sponge cakes, coated in a similar way than a lamington (the biscuit is put briefly in a cocoa and chocolate mix  then placed in shredded coconut). The pieces hold together with kebab sticks.  The day I made this cake, my oven main element broke, I had no oven,  so I used the microwave.  The great advantage of the microwave is the speed of the cooking, a couple minutes!

 

 

 

pink birthday cakeThis is just a simple birthday cake.  The cake itself is a yogurt cake, always a child’s delight (adults too).  Inside, the cake is bright pink (added food colouring)! You could use any colour really.  The icing is a cream-cheese lemon icing with a few hundred&thousands on top.

 

 

 

 

IMG_9556

For the bigger kids, a tiered zesty flower cake.  The idea was yellow colour, flowery.  The cake is a genoise (with a zest of lemon added).  It is filled with custard (again a subtle lemon zest). The topping is lemon curd and whipped cream, topped with  daisies (edible).  Around is a macadamia hazelnut crumb.

 

 

pikachu pokemon cake

For the fans of the Pokemon world, here is a Pikachu cake. It was for an 8 years old boy and many of his school friends.

There are two cakes, two hazelnut sponge cakes filled with a raspberry chocolate whipped cream (made with real chocolate). Just delicious.  The top is fondant icing which you roll and cover.

 

 

 

 

This year, Oceane asked for a unicorn cake.  unicorn cakeI was given ample warning, but it happened to be a few days before we moved house.  The cake is a hazelnut sponge cake with a chocolate strawberry mousse in the middle.  The cover is a white chocolate ganache.  I tried that sharp edges ganache technique!  I did not have all the required equipment, but really it is super easy! However, it does use a fair amount of chocolate.

 

whipped cream and berry cake

This cake is an hazelnut sponge cake filled with whipped cream and covered in fresh berries. Simple yet delicious.

 

 

 

 

 

birthday cakeThis birthday cake for for  6 y.o.  The party was a sea party by a little quiet beach. This cake is a reine de Saba (Sheiba’s queen cake) covered in chocolate ganache and then decorated  with rollin fondant.  The pearl oyster is a macaroon with a coloured white chocolte ganache for filling.

Raspberry jam

Who does not love raspberry jam?  When I grew up, we would have to pick the raspberries, here I save myself that trouble and head to the frozen section at the shop.  Some shops or food suppliers will have them at a better price than the main supermarkets.

Jam traditionally call for 1/2 fruit  to 1/2 sugar weight in their composition. I prefer mine not so sweet.  Also note that this recipe does not use any jam settler, if you want to use those, I would suggest the “sugar jam” which is sugar and settler all in one.  In that case do not use lemon juice, apparently it cancel the effect of the settler.

Did you notice my jam label? I have now been using it for 7-8 years!

Ingredients:
  • 1 kg frozen berries
  • 700 g of white sugar
  • the juice of 2 lemons
Material:
  • Jam jars previously cleaned, then sterilised in boiling water (I do that while my jam is cooking) and let to cool down face down on a clean towel
  • a large ended funnel and a ladle
  • A large cooking pot
Method:
  1. Put the raspberries, lemon juice and sugar in the cooking pot on the stove. Stir roughly.  I like using a large wooden spoon to do that.
  2. When the fruits are boiling reduce a bit.  In the meanwhile place a small plate in the freezer and prepare your jars.
  3. The jam is ready to put in pots when a few drops of jam placed on your cold plate (yep, the one you put in the freezer) and allowed to cool down for up to a minute does not run when held at an angle.
  4. Using the ladle and the large ended funnel fill the pots one by one quite close to the top  and immediately put on the lids.  The jam will settle, it may take overnight.
  5. When the pots are cold, clean them if there is a bit of jam on the outside and label them.

Tip: be very careful not to burn yourself with the jam, hot jam burns and it is painful!

Tip: runny jam? Cook it again!