Chocolate-caramel Halloween cake

This was one of those days when if something can go wrong, it will.

On those days you should not bake cakes at all.
But I did do just that, as the chocolate-caramel sweets bought from a ferry trip lured me to try a chocolate-caramel cake.
Yet again there would have been ready-made (tested and proven) filling recipes, and I even went to the shops and bought the muscovado sugar needed in them. For some reason I decided once again to make my own version, so instead of the muscovado sugar I used caramel pudding (shop bought kids' dessert here in Finland) and the vanilla quark I had in my fridge. As well as these, I also put daim-flavoured hot chocolate powder into every part I thought it suited - which was almost every single part.
I don't yet know about the taste, as the cake won't be tested until tomorrow at work, but here's the recipe I used for this:


Base:

4            eggs
1,5 dl     caster sugar
1 dl        plain flour
1 dl        potato flour
1,5 tl      baking powder
2 rkl       daim-hot chocolate powder

(for moistening:  cold daim-hot chocolate)


Filling:

3           leaves of gelatin
2 rkl      water
100 g   vanilla quark
2,5 dl    double cream
120 g   caramel pudding
100 g   dumle chocolate (1 bar)


Butter cream:

125 g    margarine
30 g      daim-hot chocolate powder
220 g    icing sugar
2 rkl       milk



It's too late in the evening to write down the instructions, but I will add them later when I have more time.

Mango and quark "cheese" cake

I received an order of a mango and quark "cheese" cake with this exact recipe so I decided to try (and taste) it a little beforehand.

I made the cake in a ø20cm loose base cake tin, and with this recipe the top layer of the cake turned out a little too thick. I think for the actual cake I will make a smaller quantity for the top layer to get a tidier finish.

Because this was just a practice version, I tried to decorate the cake with a chocolate ornament I saw in some other blog. Because it was just for practice, I just hand draw this ornament quickly on a piece of paper and then piped it with melted dark chocolate.

Because there was chocolate left over, I decided to add a couple of butterflies on top of the cake.

Finished cake with chocolate ornament and chocolate butterflies

Mango and quark "cheese" cake recipe:

Base:

150 g             oatmeal biscuits

50 g                baking margarine

Middle layer:

6                     leaves of gelatin

2 dl                 double cream

200 g             vanilla flavoured quark

300 g             mango purée

2 tsp              vanilla sugar

0,5 dl             sugar

2 tbsp            orange juice

Top layer:

1 dl                water

ca. 250 g      mango purée

1,25 dl           jelly sugar

Base:

Mix together biscuit crumbs and melted margarine and press carefully but firmly at the bottom of a loose base cake tin. Place in the fridge to set.

Middle layer:

Soak the gelatin leaves in cold water for about ten minutes until they're soft. Whisk the cream and vanilla sugar into a whipped cream. Combine the quark, mango purée and sugar in a separate bowl.

Squeeze out excess water from the soaked gelatin leaves and mix well with a couple of tablespoons of boiling hot orange juice. Combine the gelatin mix carefully whisking into the mango-quark mix. Mix in the whipped cream and pour into the pan over the biscuit crumbs. Leave to set in a fridge over night, or at least for five hours.

Top layer:

Mix water and the mango purée in a pan and bring to boil. Add the jelly sugar slowly while whisking, and boil for about a minute. Leave to cool a bit before pouring over the cake. Place the cake back in the fridge until the top layer has set

Orange and white chocolate cheesecake

For some reason every edible thing I see seems to want to turn itself into a pastry of some kind.


Therefore the oranges, cream cheese and white chocolate in my cupboard didn't stay as simply oranges, cream cheese and white chocolate for long, but turned themselves into a orange and white chocolate cheesecake

There would have been recipes for this combination readily available on the internet, but I decided to go by feeling and throw different ingredients together for this one.



So here's my version of this:



Base:

175 g        dark chocolate biscuits
50 g          baking margarine


Cheese layer:

5                leaves of gelatine
2 rkl           orange juice
2                oranges' grated zest
0,5             orange's pulp finely chopped
200 g        white chocolate
200 g        unflavoured cream cheese

orange slices are put to the tin after the biscuit crumbs
and before the cheese mix

0,5 dl         granulated sugar
2 dl            double cream
1 tl             vanilla sugar


Top layer:

2                 leaves of gelatin
2 dl             orange juice


To decorate:

orange slices
dark chocolate

Place grease proof paper on the bottom of a spring form pan (approx. ø24 cm). (Cover the sides with a plastic strip designed for the purpose if you have one, to get a smooth finish)

Mix together biscuit crumbs and melted margarine and press the mixture firmly but gently into the bottom of the pan. Put in the fridge to set while you make the cheese mix.

Cheese mix:

Soak the gelatin leaves in cold water for about ten minutes until they're soft. Melt the white chocolate in a double boiler. Whisk the cream and vanilla sugar into a whipped cream. Combine the cream cheese, orange zest, orange pulp pieces, granulated sugar and white chocolate in a separate bowl.

Squeeze out excess water from the soaked gelatin leaves and mix well with a couple of tablespoons of boiling hot orange juice. Combine the gelatin mix carefully whisking into the cheese-white chocolate mix. Mix in the whipped cream and pour into the pan over the biscuit crumbs. Leave to set in a fridge over night, or at least for five hours.

Top layer: 

Soak the gelatin leaves in cold water for about ten minutes until they're soft. Squeeze out excess water from the soaked gelatin leaves and mix well with a couple of tablespoons of boiling hot orange juice. Combine the gelatin mix thoroughly whisking into the rest of the orange juice. Pour the top layer on top of the cheese mix and let solidify in the fridge.

Airplane cake

finished airplane cake

card board molds for rice chocolate

It’s been a while since my last cake, and I had almost forgotten how great these themed cakes are to make.

This time the order was for an airplane cake for a 3-year-old boy called Oskari, and the desired flavours were strawberry and banana.

Just like with every theme cake, everything starts from the design. This time the object was to create the biggest possible (airplane shaped cake) that would fit the 32x32cm cake box, so first the shape needed to be drawn on paper.

the molds worked great

I decided to make the wings, the enginges (the main purpose of which in this design was to hold the wings up in the air J ) and the rodders out of rice chocolate, because they needed to be sturdy and of the correct thickness. This time I made card board molds for the rice chocolate.

the base of the cake filled and compacted

The base for also this cake was a traditional sheet cake (used also for swiss rolls). The fillings were strawberry purée (witch I also used to moisten the cake), banana purée and a vanilla flavoured whipped cream.

Between the cake and the sugar fondant I used normal butter cream.

The covering and the decorations of the cake are, as said, rolled sugar fondant.

The wings and the rodders have all been supported with toothpicks.

Hopefully no one will eat them :)  

carving of a cake is fun!

Happy birthday Oskari!

In English (the foreword)

I have so many English-speaking friends that I decided to venture out and create a separate blog just for you guys!

Hope you'll enjoy the sweet living I'm about to show you! ;)