Gingerbread Royal Icing house

This years gingerbread house is inspired by techniques found in Eddie Spence´s book.

I love the lightbulbs over the door - they are not from the book though...

The inside of the house is a mess, royal icing all over the "floor" so i had to shield off the windows.

Luckily My little bakery shared her beautiful gingerbread house, giving med an idea how to.

Tip; After baking, the walls dried up with a big curve, but after 8-10 seconds in the microwave I could carefully press them down so they became totally flat. After cooling on the counter with a little weight on top, they held the shape nicely.

I had this "canvas" on the backside of the house, but no idea how to decorate it,

so i played around a little. The lantern is a pattern from the book.

The reindeer and its pup :) -And the scallop piped rope/running bead,
which I´m very proud of, because it was really hard to make!
It doesn´t show very much, but its on the cookie-base along the house.

Merry, merry Christmas all :)

Christmas tree

Christmas dummy.

Once again, textures from EdibleCreators,  love these.

The tree is made by piping royal icing shells on a styrofoam cone and is "recycled" from last year 

- I´m so lazy!

Christmas cake

 

I brought this christmas cake back from Birmingham to share with my colleages come december, and it has not been easy not to take a bite or two because it smells simply divine! -And i know it tastes great, because i had more than a few tastings at the stand...

 

 

I love the texture on these cakes. I soaked the cake thoroughly with my husband´s brandy, I don´t know if that´s the way to treat it, but i bet it´s pretty tasty :) Can´t wait - I´ll have to try making these cakes myself.

 

The cover is marzipan fondant, not too easy to paint on as the wetness draws out in the marzipan.

 

Chrismas Bauble

Christmas is slowly approaching, thus a good reason for a little recycling - the topper is from last year; worlds-most-expensive-christmas-bauble.

  

I love my new textures from EdibleCreators - nice price too! -The borders are not cut though, but this can be done with a ruler or as here, with the end of a writing-tip.

Next year...

-I´ll definately bake lots of these!

I used my basic cookie recipe, rolled a ball, marked the toenails with a teaspoon, added a few wrinkles with a knife, baked - and dusted with cocoa. It took like five minutes to shape 20 toes - i like :)

They flowed out a little in the oven, but i don´t mind - it makes them look like trolls toes! :)

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Pumpkin cake

 

 

This is an orange layer cake with light green vanilla/white chocolate filling. There are three cakes inside and it should feed about 20-25 persons. It´s rather big, the plate is 30 cm and it´s about 25 cm high. It is black as the night with no blings or sugar gizmos - just a plain ol´ pumpkin.

 

I absolutely loved making this and it looks quite awesome in real life :)

I hear Licorice is the new black.......

 

 

-Or the new spice to add to almost any recipe, even rye bread!

I´ll settle for the meringues for now - and they are pretty tasty too :)

 

 

 

Especially dipped in milk chocolate....

 

 

 

 

And set in licorice sprinkles!!

Poor little things, they just had no chance. May they rest in...my tummy :)

 

 

Meringue recipe: 3 eggwhites, past. - 200 g confectioner´s sugar - 1 tsp licorice powder

 

Beat eggwhites to a thick consistency - add sugar and licorice - pour in a piping bag with a nozzle of your choice and pipe onto a baking sheet. Goes in the oven at 100dg for an hour.

 

Blue

In RL this cake/dummy is so dark blue that it´s almost black. It looks almost velvet-ish. Real nice! I´m still on a roll with Eddie Spence´s Royal icing methods slowly moving over to slightly different designs - and loving every minute! -Even though my wrists starts complaining...

Silvery Halloween

 Liking Royal icing! :) -Allthough, next time i think i´ll use

templates rather than a couple of needle-points here and there..

 

 

 The middle tier is made to look like a cast iron fence, i have this

really neat tip i never knew what to use for, but for this it was great!

 

 

 

 The dummy is painted with 100% edible silver from Rainbow dust - it

took one bottle, thinned with clear alcohol on a white cake, two coats.

 

 

 The shine! - I felt like i was decorating my cake-tins! 

 

 In daylight, at Sofisticake.

More practicing..

 

I´ve been doing a lot of practice lately - learning by doing.

 

But i´m slowly getting there :)

 

Getting the hang on the topdesign

 

-But still a bit shaky on the sidedesigns.

Ok for starters i guess.

Scandinavian Cakeshow 2012

This is what i brought to Scandinavian Cakeshow 2012 - a small piece for the danish table. Not much due to the everlasting lack of time, but i felt the need to contribute even a little something, because Tårtdecor puts so much effort in this arrangement to please all us scandinavian cake-nerds. :)

We had a great weekend, i got home quite late last night only to take an early morning flight to the other end of the country to participate in product training regarding aggregates to forklifters -what a contrast- so now i´ll drag myself to bed to recharge for working overtime most of this week. -Yay.

Silly me for starting up a cake for the danish table at 5.30 this very late afternoon! It looks nice though, no show-stopper, that´ll be up to the other incredibly talented cake creators who participates in the competition :)
I can´t wait to let my self be intertained with beautiful cakes and great company this weekend!

Scandinavian Cakeshow

Champagne Corks...

...paper airplanes and peppernuts from 2010, that's what our highly esteemed colleague throws with when he feels too bullied by us girls. Therefore, his 60th birthday cake of course had to look exactly like this. 

 

Chocolate mudcake with cognac-soaked cranberries and chocolate creme.

 

 

I tried to achieve cork-effect by sponging, dusting and painting.

 

 In addition to the cake, we celebrated by replacing his office-chair with an old rocking chair, birthday flags everywhere, a homemade Mayor chain and a birthday song when he least expected it.

 

I think he had a great day at work - i know we did! ;)

Practicing the art of Royal Icing

 

This would be my 2. attempt of Eddie Spence-ish cake decorating... Or what´s left of it.

 

Lots and lots of Royal Icing has been scraped off again, including a lower Lambeth-method-piping border that made my eyes go sore...

 

...It´s all just because i´m missing the right sized tips!

The art of Royal Icing

My latest book purchase.

Now there´s no excuse...

Oreo Cheese(cup)cakes

Today - one of the hottest days in Dk i decided to make not one, but 36 small cheesecakes. It sure would have been a lot less time consuming to make 1 or 2 large round ones, but when inspiration hits, you have to obey...

So theese - and their other friends - are going with Miss Sofie to school tomorrow.

I hope the young ones like them :)

I love these cupcake cases, they would be great for icecream too..

 

For english recipe go to Bakers Royale

 

 

In danish:

Til ca. 16 cupcakes

 

200 g digestives - 50 g lys brun sukker - 100 g smeltet smør

 

100 g knuste Oreo´s - 1 bøtte mini Oreo´s - 1/2 liter fløde - 450g philadelphia ost (ikke light) - 85 g suger - 1/2 tsk salt - 1 spsk citron saft - 2 tsk vanille sukker

 

Digestives, sukker og smeltet smør blendes godt sammen og presses godt ned i muffinsforme eller lignende. Til mine små forme er brugt 20 g pr. form.

 

Fløden piskes stiv og sættes til side.  Herefter hældes blødgjort ost, sukker, salt, vanillesukker og citron saft i en skål og piskes til det er godt blandet sammen, cirka 3-5 minutter. Fløden blandes i, (gem lidt til pynt) og der piskes til blandingen er blød. De knuste Oreo´s foldes i til sidst.

 

Herefter fyldes blandingen i formene og de sættes i køleskab 6 timer eller bedre endnu, natten over.

 

De serveres kølige f.eks. som her, med en dut flødeskum på toppen og en mini Oreo.

 

Tart with Amarena cherries

Chopped chocolate melting on a hot tart..

 

Tart with sour creme/whipped cream with vanilla, dark chocolate, Amarena cherries and mint leaves from my herb-garden. - Danish recipe here

I have a strong feeling, this Fat Daddio baking tin and i will become very close friends! :)