Hannchen Jensen Torte

As many of you know, it was my birthday as well. And so I hosted my annual Tea Party. I like to make German tortes for this occasion. My friend Thomas has been raving about the Hannchen Jensen Torte for years now, and so I decided to make it. I absolutely love it. It is two thin layers of yellow cake, baked individually, with a meringue and slivered almonds on top. The filling consists of a layer of raspberries and whipped sweetened cream. Like in many German tortes the top layer is precut, to not completely destroy the slices during cutting and serving.

The result is a complex blend of flavors and textures in each bite.

Indiana Jones Cake, 2nd Edition

Last weekend was Jay's nephew Samuel's birthday. Sam wanted an Indiana Jones Cake for his birthday, too. So that gave me the chance to revisit this "Temple of Doom". I skipped the stratigraphy cake and made it only chocolate, since no actual archaeologists were present this time. And instead of baking the dome in a bowl, I used the Betty Crocker baseball pan, that gives you the option of creating a hollow cake to be filled. Since it was the Temple of Doom, I filled it with sour gummy snakes. I lost the flowers as well and made the greenery more jungle like. I was very happy with the result and I think the half dozen 9-year olds agreed. Compare it yourself.

Indiana Jones Cake

I always wanted to make an archaeologist cake, so Jason's birthday gave me a good opportunity. The cake is made out of pound cake. I divided the dough in three, with a sour cream pound cake with chocolate chips, chocolate pound cake and almond cake. This made for "stratigraphiy" in the rocks. Everything is covered in a cream cheese chocolate frosting. I did not want the strong flavor of chocolate overpower the cake, so I chose a more mellow chocolate cream cheese frosting.

Baby Shower

One of my coworkers is going to have a baby soon, so today we had a baby shower for her. Here is the cake. It is chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling and my cream cheese frosting. The little baby pieces are made from chocolate. The cake was 10' in diameter and weight in at close to 8 pounds!

Something completely different...

This blackberry jam filled lattice braid is a reminder that I really love to eat cake. I might make things that aim to look good, but my prime goal is always, that things taste great. For me taste always comes before looks, because we all had those awful grocery store decorated flower cakes, that after one bite remind you, why you never wanted to eat those again.

Paula's Cakes

My friend Paula had a big birthday this week. For her Saturday party I made a two tier Chocolate Cake filled with Chocolate Buttercream and covered in ganache. It was every chocolate lovers dream.

For her small intimate dinner we had an almond cake filled withan apricot-mandarin cream, covered in cream with coconate flakes and white chocolate confections.

Crocodile

Marlene's friend Zoey (not to be mixed up with Amelia's friend Zoey) wanted a crocodile cake for her birthday. We searched the web and finally found a good idea for a crocodile. We have the darn good chocolate cake again. The animal is cut out of two 9 x 13 cakes. As frosting we have my favorite cream cheese frosting, with accents of chocolate. The eyes and nose are made out of marshmallows.