Sand cake

"Don't be a bad cake, be a good cake"...


This is something most Finnish kids say (in Finnish though) after filling a bucket with sand, turning it over, and hitting the bottom of the bucket with a sand shovel. :) 

This time, I made an actual edible version of this "sand cake"


This became my holiday cake, as although it doesn't yet feel that way, my summer holiday starts tomorrow. Originally I planned to make a cake that would have represented a sandy beach, as I wanted to try edible sand on a cake. At some point the beach turned into a bucket of sand, and the next idea was to make a bucket shaped cake which had sand in it. Due to lack of time, that idea was simplified even further, and the cake became a very basic sand cake from my childhood.


(the sand toys behind the cake are just photo props, as I didn't have time to make edible versions :) )



I tried a peach flavoured filling for this cake. We'll see how that goes down with my colleagues tomorrow... :)



Peach filling: (for a 6 egg cake)

230 g       canned peaches in juice
                     (NB! 230 g is the net weight for the peaches! Of course you can also use fresh peaches)
150 g       peach flavoured quark
3,5 dl       double cream
5              gelatin leaves
2 tbsp      fruit juice or water


Put the gelatin leaves into cold water to soak for 5-10 minutes. 
Drain peaches and puree them. Mix in the quark.
Whip the cream.
When the gelatin leaves are soft, squeeze out excess water and and melt them with boiling hot juice or water. Add the gelatin mix into the peach quark mix and stir well. Add whipped cream and mix until smooth.



How to make a sand cake:

Bake two different size cakes (I used 15cm and 20cm tins)

Cut the cake bases into discs as usual, place on top of each other
and cut into rough shape

Fill the cake, cover with cling film and place in the fridge to set
(I used a partition board between the two cakes so that the cake would eventually be easier to cut into portions. You can see pictures of how to do that here)

Once the cake is set, carve it into its final shape and cover with buttercream

Crush different colour biscuits with a blender into fine powder.
You can also mix in different colour sugars,
which make the biscuit sand glisten like the real deal

Cover the buttercream with biscuit sand and decorate for example
with sugar fondant stones or clams if you want

Mother's Day's hearty swiss roll

Some time ago I received this linktip from my brother's wife, and I've been waiting for the right occasion to try it out.

This weekend I was supposed to have my hands full with a birthday cake making, so I didn't plan on making anything for Mother's Day. But since this weekend's cake was moved forward a couple of weeks, I suddenly had both time and extra ingredients.  


For this swiss roll I made a simple filling of (sweetened) babies' raspberry and blueberry puree and whipped cream.

Once you've made the swiss roll batter, move some of it into a separate bowl and mix in some food colouring

Pipe decorations with the coloured batter onto a baking sheet

Bake in the oven (200°C) for 2-3 minutes and let cool a bit
(another option is to freeze the decorations for about 10 minutes in the freezer)

Spread the remaining swiss roll batter on top of the decorations and bake normally

Turn the baked swiss roll over on another sheet of baking paper and  carefully remove the sheet from the decorated side.
NOTE! You'll need to turn the sheet cake over once more before adding the filling so that the decorated side will become the outside layer of the swiss roll

Rice Krispies Treats

In American cake programs they often use 'Rice Krispies Treats' when sculpting difficult shapes or covering support structures, and now that I needed something to bring a bit of dimension to a cake pig's snout (which I'll be making tomorrow with my cousin's daughter), I decided to give this recipe a go.

I took the recipe directly from Kellog's Rice Krispies' site and reduced the amounts to fit my test batch. (The amounts I used made a 11 x 16 x 2,5 cm sheet of Rice Krispies Treats)





Rice Krispies Treats:

1 tbsp    margarine
80 g       marshmallows
4 dl        rice cereal

Melt the margarine on a low heat

Add marshmallows...

...and stir...

...until the marshmallows are completely melted

Remove from heat and mix in the rice cereal until fully coated

Spread the mixture onto a sheet of baking paper, and use the paper to press firmly into shape. Let cool.