Weddings are fun!

Okay! It's finally time to show off the wedding cake that I made for a friend's wedding in August! It was a beautiful wedding for a sweet couple. The theme for the wedding was simple, silver, white and lime green. The cake was a 4 tiered square cake that rotated slightly. It's definately the biggest cake that I've made to date, and there are many things I learnt along the way. Here are some of those lessons:

1. Big cakes need LOTS of space...both when working with them and in the fridge. Luckily I have a pretty large fridge, so even the base of the cake fitted in the fridge...well, I actually measured the fridge first to make sure the cake would fit, because as you know, it was the middle of summer...and creamy cakes NEED to live in a fridge! The cupcakes I kept in the freezer so it all worked out pretty well.

2. Rolling out HUGE pieces of fondant by hand is not easy! Whenever you roll fondant to cover a cake it has to quite a bit bigger then the actual cake so that you don't end up with wrinkled sides. That means that the fondant for the bottom tier had to be almost 1 meter(about 0.8m to be exact). Now that's pretty easy when you watch the Cake Boss and all those shows where they have machines to roll the fondant perfectly smooth...not so easy doing it at home. But with a little bit of patience it turned out ok as well.

3. Dress warmly! Well, not when you are baking the cake, but I had to transport the cake about 3 hours to Malmö, in an air-conditioned car. I have never transported cakes so far, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but, thankfully nothing happened along the way. It's a pity I forgot my socks though...my toes were pretty blue when I got there!

All in all...agreeing to do a wedding cake takes a lot of planning and precision...but it's definately worth it when you see the happy couple!
 

Cheers to you, Håkan and Emma! We wish you many happy years together and many blessings over your lives!

Love,
Heidi

Sneak preview of what is to come...

Oh dear...it has been a hectic summer...which means ZERO time for updating blogs. I hope that ya'll haven't missed me too much! ;-)

A few weeks ago I had the biggest order up-to-date...100 cupcakes plus a wedding cake for 130 people...for a special friend's wedding. Unfortunately this HUGE order (which by the way was all made in my tiny kitchen...miracles can happen) also coincided with the death of my precious morfar (grandfather). More on both of these events later...I just wanted to send a sneak preview of the cupcakes and hopefully get you excited for seeing THE cake!

I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out!

That's it for now.

Love,
Heidi

Kärleksmums...

Love is always in the air in Sweden during the summer. There are usually many weddings to attend and many wedding pictures to look over! It's a fun time of year!

This year I have several wedding cakes/cupcakes lined up so it's pretty exciting! A few weeks ago I made a delivery for a cute couple that live close to me and wanted to have cupcakes for their wedding and a little cake as well. They have a great company that works with events and catering, you can check their homepage out here. They wanted pink polka dot cupcake holders with a "kärleksmums" cupcake..which is a chocolatey cake with a delicous icing. "Kärlek" means love in Swedish, so it kind of suits a wedding, don't you think? They also wanted fresh strawberries to decorate the cupcakes. For the cake: they wanted a pink cake, a "princesstårta" which is also a Swedish classic, with chiffon cake layered with a vanilla cream. On the same day of their wedding, I was attending some of my dear friend's wedding, so I was only able to deliver the cake and cupcakes and not set it up at the location, which I usually like to do. But they promised to send photos of what it looked like on the day. I'll keep you posted!

This is how they turned out:

Heaven in a bite...

If you have been to Sweden you most probably know what "kladdkaka" is. Even if you haven't been here but have Swedish friends you have probably tasted this Swedish classic. It is AMAZING!!!

If you have been to Sweden you most probably know what "kladdkaka" is. Even if you haven't been here but have Swedish friends you have probably tasted this Swedish classic. It is AMAZING!!!

For those you have not yet had the privilege of tasting this delicious "cake", here is the recipe...so get to your kitchen and try it out, because, yes...it IS so good. The closest that South Africans come to this is chocolate mud pie, which kind of explains what the "kladdkaka" is all about. Directly translated it means "sticky cake". And that's what it is. Sticky, gooey, chocolatey, amazing cake.

The number one secret with getting a perfect "kladdkaka" is not to mix the ingredients too much and not to have it in the oven for too long. It almost still needs to be jiggly in the middle when you take it out.

This "kladdkaka" is usually made in a round pie form, but I also like to make them as cupcakes. The one's in the pictures are topped with a nougat and raspberries. Absolute bliss!

Enough talking...here's the recipe:

Makes about 6-8 portions (if you are a chocolate lover like me, make that 2-4 portions ;-) )

2 eggs
1 cup (2 1/2 dl) sugar
4 tbsp cocoa
1 tsp vanilla essence
100g melted butter/margarine
100 ml (1 dl) flour
1 pinch of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Mix the egg and sugar by hand for about 2 minutes.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients and fold then carefully in.
4. Pour the batter into an oiled pie form.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Keep a close eye on your cake as each oven varies slightly in strength.
6. Serve either warm or cold, together with ice cream and cream.

Happy eating!

Love,
Heidi

Jnytt TV

This week I had the opportunity to bake cupcakes on Jnytt's webTV. It was a fun experience! It was also one of the brightest days we've had so far this summer so filming in my kitchen was a bit tricky, but it worked out pretty ok. I made lemon poppy cupcakes with white chocolate frosting. The recipe I used was my easy all-in-one cake batter (click here to check it out...). I added the zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon and about 2 tsp lemon poppy seeds and mixed it into the batter instead of the cheesecake filing. You can find the frosting recipe here.

Here's some pictures from some cupcakes I made a few days ago. Cute, aren't they?

Click here to watch some of my best cupcake tips!

I'm off to go and prepare some cupcakes and a cake for a wedding on Saturday!

Have a great day everyone!

Love,
Heidi

Birthday blues...

Birthdays are always fun! The older you get the more you should celebrate your birthdays...but many times it's not like that. Many people have terrible anxieties about getting older, which is understandable if you think that for every year that goes by you have 1 year less to live.

Put that way, it sounds really depressing! At times I look forward to growing old...having a life full of memories, both good and bad behind me to keep me content. Knowing that I've been down a road which no-one has gone, learning from the mistakes made and spreading love to those around me...

Yet, at other times, the thought of my now 2-year old son one day shooting up above me and becoming a man or my hair starting to turn grey is a daunting thought and looked forward to with a mixture of dread and anticipation. For me, the secret I think, is in how I live now...making the most of today. Today is all I have, and if I give everything to my life here and now, that's what's going to fill me up with those warm memories...

Even when life has moved many years on, being able to look back and say "I've lived the life I wanted to live. It wasn't always what I planned but somehow God has turned everything for the good", that's what I really look forward to!

I hope you are looking forward to the adventures of life and learning to live today to the full!

Happy 50th birthday, Marianne! You are loved and appreciated!

Strawberry and raspberry compote

I absolutely love surprises! They always make me so happy. And the other day I got a really great surprise.

My car was parked at my church while I was at varsity, and after a long hard day of preparing for a big presentation I came to my car and saw that someone had tied a bag of rhubarbs to my car. I'm still not sure who it was, but thank you to that person! You made my day!

One of my favourite things to do with rhubarbs is to stew them, especially together with strawberries. The flavours combine so well and it can be used for so much. It's a great dessert together with some white chocolate cream. It's great with some yoghurt or porridge for breakfast. It also works great as a filling between 2 layers of cake. Fill a pretty jar up with the compote and you have a perfect present to give away!

Here's the recipe:

3 rhubarb stalks
1kg frozen strawberries (or 1 litre fresh)
1 dl sugar (can adjust to your desired level of sweetness)
2 tbsp water
2 tsp cardemom seeds, ground
½ vanilla pod

1. Trim the rhubarbs and remove the outer skin. Cut stalks into small pieces.
2. Put all the ingredients (except the vanilla) in a pot and simmer for about 1 hour.
3. Scrape out the vanilla from the pod and mix it into the compote.
4. Serve with some white chocolate cream and lots of love


Another thing that makes me happy is seeing how many new people come by and visit me on my blog! I hope you enjoy!

Have a wonderful day!

Love,
Heidi