Two Birthday Cakes

Matic's Flower Cake

Please excuse the lousy picture (I was not at home), but I went to my boyfriend's family's house, where his sister, mother, and I made him a spectacular birthday cake. Scientifically, I think what happened is that brotherly, motherly and romantic love combined into a delicious goo of adoration, with then baked in the oven at 180 C and then presented itself as a manifestation of good wishes and all good things in general, which we then ate, while grinning like the cheshire cat in Alice.

That, with all the drama, is how birthdays are made.

INGREDIENTS

The dough:

150 g coconut oil

150 g brown sugar

4 eggs

4 spoons of dark cocoa powder

200 g ground almonds (you can also use walnuts, if you like)

The filling:

100 g ground almonds

100 g brown molasses sugar

1 dcl water

100 g coconut oil

The decorations:

200 g dark chocolate

100 g butter

Almond slices

The dough:

Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and melted coconut oil. When smooth, stir in the chocolate powder and almonds. Be careful to keep the mass fluffy! Be sure to be stirring very gently and slowly, especially in the last step.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg whites into kind of a solid cream. The ultimate egg white test goes like this: turn the bowl over. If the egg whites you have been dutifully whisking start sliding down and onto your kitchen counter, you have much more whisking to do! But, if the egg whites stay in the bowl exactly like they were, like a solid cloud, then you can give yourself a pat on the back for yet another job well done.

When the egg whites are ready, slowly stir them into the first mix with a soft spatula, making sure to very gentle.

Bake at 180 C for 1 hour.

When the dough has cooled off, cut in in half and spread the filling on the both pieces. Then close up the cake and spread the chocolate glaze all over the top. Then decorate.

The filling:

Bring the water to a boil and then mix in the sugar. You should get a little foam on top and the smell of caramel should be filling the kitchen. Then stir in the almonds.

In another skillet, heat up the almonds (so they release their delicious aroma) and pour orange extract and/or orange liqueur over them, along with the coconut oil.

Then pour this mass into the water skillet and stir under low heat, until fully combined. Pretend you are spreading Nutella as you moisten the dough with the marzipan filling.

The decorations:

Make the classic chocolate glaze, using a double skillet. You simply melt the chocolate with the butter and let it cool a little. That is all.

What we did to decorate, though, besides for covering the whole cake in luscious chocolate, was a little trick that just happened to turn out very cute. We put tons of little chocolate lumps onto a baking sheet and let it harden the the fridge. We then arranged them onto the glazed cake, with enough spaces in between to arrange the almond slices around them, to make the cake look like field of flowers.

Luka's Buckwheat Cake

Luka is my cousin, whose house I went to, to make him a celebratory birthday cake. You will thus once again have to excuse the pictures, taken with my ipod, but at least a happy Luka is recognizable on them! This is really all the documentation I have of the event...

I have even have a reputation within the family as the Birthday Cake Maker.

What? Someone is celebrating? No fear, the Cake Maker is here!

Luka likes it creamy and fruity, so even though this cake is not my style, he was happy.

The dough:

7 eggs (no joke.)

140 g buckwheat flour

200 g brown molasses sugar

Rum, rum extract, or rum sugar

The filling:

Non-dairy whipped cream

Peach compote

Cherry compote

The decorations:

Almonds

Fresh strawberries

Non-dairy whipped cream

Cake song:
Build Me Up Buttercup- The Foundations