Sugary Octonauts

This time I didn't get a request for a cake, but cake decorations - more precisely "Octonauts". The characters were requested in 2D, so that it was possible to make bigger figures with less fondant.

After a short internet search I found out that the characters in the above picture were called Kwazii, Captain Barnacles and Peso.

A later addition was this "octo alert button" on the right. 

Congratulations to Matias, whose birthday cake these figures will top!

Strawberry and rhubarb panna cotta (cake)

Last Friday I was with a group of people from work in Sokos Hotel Flamingo in Vantaa, and happened to also have a taste of vanilla panna cotta with summer berries. 

I have to admit that I had never eaten, let alone made a panna cotta before, so from the first spoonful my mind was racing with different ways to modify this dessert.

I browsed through the internet for different panna cotta recipes (and there are many!), and finally decided to combine them into my own version.

I wanted to fight the traditional way of serving this dessert and decided to make it in a springform pan (not a good idea), so I made a biscuit crumb layer in the bottom. Using a springform pan with this recipe was challenging, as the thin liquid panna cotta mix oozed out the sides before setting, and I had to spoon it back in the tin a couple of times. Luckily I was far-wise (?) and put the entire tin on a larger plate to begin with. (Perhaps it might have helped if I'd let the panna cotta mix cool down and set a bit more before pouring into the pan?)


Biscuit base: (for a ø20cm tin)

120 g   oatmeal biscuits
50 g     margarine

Crush the biscuits into small crumbs. Melt the margarine and add into the crumbs. Place a baking sheet into a springform pan and spread the biscuit crumbs evenly by pressing gently into the bottom of the pan.



Panna cotta:

6 dl       double cream
2 dl       semi-skimmed milk
0,5 dl    sugar
1           vanilla bean
5           gelatin leaves

Pour the cream, milk and sugar into a pan. Slice the vanilla bean lengthways and scrape the seeds into the cream. Boil the cream, milk, sugar and vanilla bean in a pan. Take off the heat, remove the vanilla bean, and carry on mixing every now and then. 
Put the gelatin leaves into cold water to soak for 5-10 minutes. When the gelatin leaves are soft, squeeze out excess water.
Put the gelatin leaves into the warm cream-mix and stir until they're completely dissolved. Let the mix cool down to body temperature before pouring into (cooled) dessert bowls. Let set in the fridge for a few hours.

If you want to try your luck with the springform pan, I recommend to try cooling the cream-mix down to a semi-set stage before pouring into the pan. Or alternatively you can spoon the oozed-out mix back into the pan every half an hour. :)


Rhubarb topping:

2 dl        water
2 dl        rhubarb sliced (approx.100g)
1 dl        jam sugar

Put the water and the rhubarb into a pan and bring to boil. Add the jam sugar into the boiling mix while stirring. Let cool down slightly and spoon over the already set panna cotta (over frozen or fresh strawberries). Place back in the fridge and let set for a while.

Graduation cake for tourism master students

This time I was asked to make a cake for tourism master students in graduation phase, so my idea was to combine school books and a few famous landmarks. The name of the book in the bottom was chosen by accident, as I jokingly wrote it in my design just to show a possibility to add text. The person who ordered this cake thought the name was just right, and so it stayed.





The cake was supposed to be a combination of Baileys and chocolate, so I modified the recipe used in the Miss Piggy house warming cake a couple of weeks ago. I may have poured a little too much Baileys in this one though... :)







Baileys and chocolate filling: (for a ø20-24cm cake)

300 g      vanilla flavoured quark
60 g        dark chocolate
3 tbsp     Baileys (I may have put 4 tbsp)
2             leaves of gelatin (I put 3 as this was
                    a shaped cake)
1 tbsp     water
2 dl         double cream



Let the gelatin leaves soak in cold water for about 5-10 minutes.
Whip the cream, and in a separate bowl mix together vanilla quark, melted dark chocolate and Baileys.
Squeeze out excess water from the gelatin leaves, and melt them with a tablespoonful of boiling hot water. Add the gelatin mix into the quark-chocolate-Baileys mix and stir well. Add the whipped cream and stir carefully.

I was supposed to create an effect where the palm tree starts on the book page as 2D and continues upwards as 3D, but I couldn't get it to work quite as well as I planned it

The Eiffel Tower consisted of 13 minuscule 

pieces, which almost made me lost my cool a 

couple of times when gluing them together :)

Finally I did manage to get the

Eiffel Tower somewhat right

Dinoco truck birthday cake

This birthday was supposed to be celebrated already a couple of weeks ago, but due to unfortunate circumstances and little birthday boy's misfortune, the party was postponed.

The theme of this cake the birthday boy decided to be "the King's truck", i.e. the blue Dinoco truck from Disney Pixar's Cars. When I asked what the flavour should be, the answer was "Lightning McQueen, so red". Right, ok. Strawberry it is then :)

 

I made the entire truck out of cake,
so the sharp shapes were difficult
to execute

I used cereal and biscuit crumbs as
"sand" to cover the base

Congratulations Aapo, 4 years!

Naming cake for a baby boy

This time a new name was given to Leevi Petteri.

              CONGRATULATIONS!



Baby hand prints and foot prints on the side of the cake were airbrushed using a stencil.

I made both stencils myself out of overhead projector sheets, and the model for hand prints I stole copied from here. :)

Miss Piggy housewarming cake with Baileys filling

I absolutely love those cake request which I'm given a theme and a free hand to execute it. This is what happened with this cake.

This cake was supposed to be for a house warming party, and the theme was Miss Piggy. The filling was left to me to decide.

Miss Piggy was made out of sugar paste

Some time ago while looking for cake ideas for a baby shower, I came across this baby crib cake, and it came to my mind as soon as my brain registered the word 'house warming'. This gave me an idea to make a bed cake, on which Miss Piggy would have a well deserved rest in between her packing/unpacking.








I understood that the cake was to go to someone who's into bowling, so naturally I needed to add a bowling ball to the cake!

I was able to utilize my England-brought air brush kit yet again with the bed ends. Airbrushing makes the colour more vibrant and more interesting. And it's such a great fun to do! :)







Choosing the filling for this cake was easy, as my intuition told me right from the start that this cake was going to have a Baileys flavour. Here is the recipe I used for this filling:



Baileys-filling (adults only!): (this recipe makes enough filling for a 10 person cake)

300 g            unflavoured cream cheese
3 tbsp           Baileys Irish Cream
0,5 dl            icing sugar
1,5 dl            double cream


Whip the cream. Mix together the cream cheese, Baileys and icing sugar and add the whipped cream into the mix.

As well as in the filling, I used Baileys with milk to moisten the cake, and used Baileys as the liquid in the butter cream layer between the cake and the sugar fondant.

"IKEA hack" kitchen island

Since moving into my flat (almost three years ago) I've been desperately longing for a kitchen renovation, as the approx. 50cm wide kitchen counter has set major challenges for baking. My dining room table previously placed in the kitchen has doubled as extra counter space, but being so low it wasn't the ideal work surface either. In addition, the storage space in my tiny little kitchen was starting to run out due to the number of accumulated cake tins and other supplies.

Because of my current budget (and the possibility of an impending pipe renovation) an entire kitchen renovation was out of the question, and so the solution came in the form of a DIY kitchen island. Luckily my living room is big enough to accommodate the dining table, so no radical changes were needed.

kitchen before

Of course I wanted to make the kitchen island as cheaply as possible (still fitting to my needs), so a large part of it came from Ikea.

The frame of this kitchen island consists of two EXPEDIT 2x2 shelving units which were attached together with two made-to-measure furniture boards (bottom and top). Work surface is Ikea's (sawed in half and re-glued) NUMERÄR beech, and there are four locking furniture wheels underneath the unit.

I did notice that even when made cheaply, a kitchen island is quite expensive, but if the other option is to renovate the entire kitchen, it's definitely worth the investment!