Happy Accidents

I am no professional baker and I am also owner of a very confused oven. So it comes to no surprise that some of my creations come out as...not quite perfect.

My oven, never minding what temperature I put it on, decided to be way too hot, making my meringues crack left and right. I was pretty down, because I had imagined this really great looking cake with great looking meringues on top, but no, my oven hates me.

But when my sister saw the cracked meringues, she immediately suggested I put eyes on them, so they would look like delicious little monsters!
Which, as she repeatedly told me, suited me much better anyway.

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes little accidents make everything even better! :D

 I only recently bought a cake decorating stand, so this was the first time I was using it, plus the first time I tried making a gradient frosting. Isn't it pretty? :DDD

I might have overdone the ganache a bit though...

Say Aaaah~~!

The cake was a chocolate cake, with vanilla frosting, fresh raspberries and meringue crumbs in between the layers. De.li.cious.

Cakes, cakes and more cakes

Hey, long time no read!

This will just be a post about my most recent cakes (I didn't get a slice of a single one of them ;A;), so enjoy!


Simpsons 30 donut cake
One of my mum's friends requested the cake, a 30 made out of donuts, with Homer Simpson somewhere on it.
I don't think they meant a passed out Homer, surrounded by dozens of Duff Beer cans, but hey, artistic freedom and all that.

Please ignore the tablet the cake is on (which I stole from my grandma) and the unpretty edges of the pink icing D:
But looky here, I even made the middle layer of the cake purple to look like filling!

I know, it doesn't really look purple, but that's just because I had already slathered it with apricot jam. (Although slathered might be the wrong word, seeing how I ran out of jam in the middle of it...)

All in all, I'm quite happy with how the cake turned out!


Robin Hood cake
Another one of my mum's friends requested this one for her son's (grandson?) birthday! At first they actually wanted a tractor cake, but then, realising that the theme of the birthday party was Robin Hood, they changed their request accordingly. (Although I wouldn't have minded making a Robin Hood tractor cake...would have been interesting!)

I wasn't really sure what to make at first, but Robin Hood makes you think of Sherwood forest, so trees are kind of fitting, right?
It would have helped, if someone had told me that Disney's Robin Hood was completely ok, before, you know, I was already almost finished with the cake. Oh well.

Making the cake was actually kinda soothing. Roll a fondant snake, stick it onto the cake...roll a fondant snake, stick it onto the cake...roll a fondant snake...I think you got it.

On the left you can see what the tree looked like before I painted it~
I wish more people wanted tree cakes D:


Halo cake (with the help of a friend)
One of my own friends for once!
I baked the cake (chocolate cake, with cheesecake in the middle) and then she came over to help with the decorating. The little guy on top of the cake was made by me, and my friend had actually made another character, but stupid as she is, she wasn't happy with how hers turned out, so she ate it. Oh well.
We did not have any black fondant, so we just painted black all over the cake and then splattered blue, pink and white on top...yeah, it was a disaster, and we got more paint on ourselves than the cake, but it was fun!

No idea why all the pictures came out so blurry D: I swear I only painted with the vodka, nothing else!


Southpark Cartman cake
My most recent cake, made only two days ago, for our neighbour's son's 25th birthday!
At first she also wanted a Simpsons cake (which I wasn't all that thrilled about, because I had just made one), but then her other son came up with the Southpark idea, and while I personally do not like Southpark, I was super happy when I saw the picture!

I had a few problems with the hat (including the rim breaking off and my dad accidentally throwing something at it and squashing it...), but in the end, everything turned out okay(ish...I still think the hat could have looked better)

Anyway: Taa-daaaa~~~~

I have to admit, I'm actually really proud of this cake >w<

And that's all for today! :)

RED

Cherries, raspberries, red currants, strawberries - all red, and absolutely delicious!

Sour Cherry Cake (from our sour cherry tree - they were SO juicy, the cake took forever to bake)

Raspberry Pudding Tart (there are four different kinds of raspberries on there, all from our garden :) the super ripe looking ones are actually a dark variety we bought last year, delicious!)

 Japanische Weinbeere (no idea what those are called in English, a direct translation would be 'Japanese Wine Berry'. From our neighbour, look like raspberries, feel like the things they put on socks so you won't slip, taste a bit sour, but not bad!)

Woodland Strawberries are the BEST strawberries. Sometimes they're teeny tiny like this one, but still they have ten times the flavour of strawberries you can buy at a store.

My grandma sent quite a lot of these little guys over, together with the red currants. Isn't he adorable? (please ignore that my fingers look like I just murdered someone, I was making red currant jam...honest!)

 Another tiny fellow

 A bucket full of red currants going through my 'Flotte Lotte' (which was quite a workout) -

 - to make 1,8kg pure, sour, yummy sauce, to which I then added sugar and made delicious jam!

I dubbed these sandwiches 'blood puddle' :D (the picture doesn't do the red justice)

I usually like cherries...

Our neighbour has a big cherry tree, and was nice enough to give us a quite a lot of cherries.
The only problem: maggots in every single one of them...
Now, if you're like our neighbour, you just shrug and are happy about the extra nutrients. Yeah, well, I'm not really fond of creepy crawlies in my cake, but maybe that's just me.
My mum suggested to throw the cherries into hot water for a bit, because, according to her, the maggots would flee the cherries and I could just fish them out.
Tried it, and ended up with well done maggots...still inside the cherries. Oh well.
Thankfully I'm not squeamish, so I just cut open every single cherry and discarded the pit and eventual inhabitants. (Unless of course the cherry looked really unappealing inside or housed an entire family)

Apart from taking ages, it was actually kind of fun, because my kitchen looked like a scene from a horror movie. Red cherry juice splatters everywhere!
I made a yogurt-cup cake (you can find the recipe HERE), which is already half gone, so yay.

Next I'll probably  bake something red currant-y, because our garden is full of them! Unless, of course, I eat them all before that. Red currants with sugar~~~~~ *Q*

Pic Dump

I always take pictures to post on this blog.
.
.
.
I just always forget to post them /cough

So here's a little pic dump of recent events, in no particular order.

 Banana split Cheesecake! Recipe may follow, unless I'm lazy...which I probably will be.

 Banana Brownies! Just add two bananas to this recipe.

 Banana Soufflé!

 Superbowl Food Package I made for my dad and sister.

 I couldn't decide which pie to make on Pi day, so I made halves (chocolate fudge and buttermilk)

 And also a square Pie.

 On St. Patrick's Day, I actually made more than just this green fruit salad, but the other pictures didn't look very...appetising. (But it tasted good!)

Tip: If you've never drawn a wolf before, see that your first try isn't on a cake...
Birthday cake for my friend (and yes, I know how to spell wolf, but her nickname is Wulf, so~)

I never meassure in cups, unless...

...they're yoghurt cups!

Have a really quick, simple and delicious yoghurt cake recipe:

1 cup yoghurt (150g)
3 yoghurt cups (300g) flour
2 yoghurt cups (300g) sugar
1 yoghurt cup (150g) oil
2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs

With this recipe, you can either weight your ingredients, or just meassure them with your yoghurt cup.

 Just throw all the ingredients together.

 Mix until smooth~

 Add fruit on top.

 Tip: If you dip the fruit into flour fist, it won't sink to the bottom during baking.

 Bake at 180°C for about 30 minutes, or until you can stab the cake with a toothpick and it comes out clean.

Enjoy your cake!
Guten Appetit!