Theater Haberstedt

Theater Haberstedt is a LARP theatre group, which means that we play actors who play a play... Confusing? Well, it might be ;)

So, last weekend we were at one of those events again, but this time it was neither a aristocratic-political thing, nor a 'let's run around in the woods' thing, it was a 'having fun' thing. Some of my friends an me, we were there as said theatre group.

Beforehand, I was asked whether I wanted to make a cake for about 250 people. I agreed. So, I happened to make a 'Theater Haberstedt'-cake. All in all the cake made 233 portions plus lots of cake pops.

photo by Krisz

On the inside the cakes were basically the basic Peggy Porschen cake and butter cream or chocolate ganache. 

The 12cm cakes were lemon cake with apricot jam and lemon butter cream, the 18cm cakes vanilla cake with orange flavoured chocolate ganache and apricot jam and the 24cm and 30cm ones were chocolate cake with vanilla butter cream and jam. 

All in all there were nine 12cm cakes, five 18cm cakes, one 24cm cake, one 30cm cake, five lemon muffins and about 60 cake pops.

With the help of a faux bois structure foil the brown coloured fondant was turned into planks, so that they - hopefully - looked like a cheap stage. Some fondant became figures and masks that are attached to the planks and the muffins were topped with one larger and one smaller cake pop each, so that there were figures on four of the 12cm cakes as well. Each of the figures got a different hairstyle, so that one might compare them to some of the 'real' actors ;)

The rest of the nearly 10 kg of fondant was made into flowers, of which you can see looooads on the cake :)

But enough talking. Here are some pictures. Some more photos will follow when I get them.

Have a look at how creamy the dough looks like. I really loved the texture.

This is the faux bois foil.

A bit of lemon butter cream. 

Four of the small ones. 

Here is the whole cake. 

photo made by Krisz

photo by Krisz

photo by Krisz

photo by Krisz

Plaited yeast bread

Something I like to make for Easter...

You need:

500 g flour
80 g sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
salt
1 egg
1 egg white
250 g single cream
1 sachet dry yeast


1 yolk
1 tbsp. milk


Put flour, sugar, vanilla sugar, salt, egg and egg white into a bowl. Mix dry yeast with the single cream and leave it for some minutes to soak. Then, pour the mixture over the other ingredients and knead until well combined. Leave, covered up, in a warm place for about half an hour. Knead again and divide into four parts, then, form a strand out of each part and make a four-strand braid. Leave in a warm place for half an hour again, then, mix the egg yolk with the milk and spread it on the braid with a baking brush. Bake the yeast bread for about 30 minutes on 180°C.

Green (not velvet) Cheesecake

Imagine it is someone's birthday and the person loves plants and the colour green. Well, she had to get a somehow green cake.

For the sponge you need:

250 g butter (softened)
200 g sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
4 eggs
green food colour (I used about one eggcup)
250 g flour
2 tsp. baking powder

Mix butter, sugar and vanilla sugar until fluffy. Then, add the eggs one by one until well combined. Now, add as much green food colour as you like until the colour is to your liking. The exact amount depends on the quality of the food colour you are using. I had to use quite a lot here because I used food colour from our local super market, but I do own other colours from a pastry store; those yield deeper colours with only several drops of colouring.
Now, mix the flour with the baking powder and add it to the butter-sugar-egg mix. When all is well combined, fill it into a greased round 26cm baking tin and put it into the oven for about 30 minutes on 180°C.

While the cake cools down you can prepare the cheesecake part of the whole thing. All you need is:

100 g sugar
2 eggs
750 g curd cheese
1 sachet custard powder (cream flavour)

Start by mixing sugar and eggs until the mixture gets a light yellow colour. Then, add curd and custard powder until everything is well incorporated.
Grease and flour a 26cm round baking tin and fill in the mixture. Bake for about 45 minutes on 180°C. 
 
While the cakes cool down, you have time to prepare the cream cheese cream.
What you need is:

250 g curd cheese
125 g butter (softened)
100 g sugar
200 g cream cheese (honey flavour; I used 'Brunch - Mona Lisa')

Mix everything until well combined.

When both cakes are at room temperature, cut each of them into two equal slices.

Then, position one green slice on a plate.

Spread a small amount of the cream onto it and top with a slice of cheesecake. Again, spread a small amount of cream onto it. Continue likewise with the remaining slices.

When all the slices are used, cover the whole cake in cheese cream an refrigerate until the cream is set.

Last, you need 200 g single cream and two sachets of 'whip it'. Beat the cream until stiff peak, adding the powder slowly.

Cover the whole cake in whipped cream, decorate to your liking and... ready :)

I decorated the cake with green sugar and small cake pops that I made out of the remaining cream cheese cream and some crumbs from the green cake that I had to cut off to make the two slices even.

Making of: Manesse Cake

Another Larp-event that called for a cake... The Grenzbrueck Reychstag. I wanted to try something new, so I thought about 'painting' a cake. The cake is a basic chocolate cake topped with orange-chocolate ganache and coated with fondant.
The cake is painted with royal icing and food colour pens.

For the chocolate sponge you need

150 g chopped dark chocolate
200 ml milk
400 g sugar
150 g butter at room temperature
4 eggs
300 g flour
3 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda

Pre-heat the oven to 160°C. Put the chocolate, milk and 200 g sugar into a pot and cook until the chocolate is melted. Then, mix butter and remaining sugar in another bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, then add flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda. Mix carefully. Slowly pour in your cooked chocolate mixture and mix again, slowly.
Line a baking tray and fill in the dough and bake for about 30 minutes. Check whether it is done with a toothpick.

While the cake cools down, use the time to prepare the ganache.

250 g dark chocolate (at least 55%)
250 g single cream
grated zest of 1 orange

Chop the chocolate and put it into a bowl together with the orange zest while heating the single cream. When the cream is hot, pour it over the chopped chocolate and stir occasionally until all the chocolate is melted. Let the ganache cool down and set a little. When it is firm enough to be spread upon the cake, position the cake onto a tray and cover the cake with the ganache (top and sides). 


Let the cake rest in the fridge until set (until the cream becomes firm to touch). 

Then, cover the cake with marzipan and fondant.

You need:

800 g marzipan 
250 g  confectioner's sugar (sifted)
800 g fondant
confectioner's sugar for dusting


Knead the confectioner's sugar into the marzipan to make it less sticky to your hands, and the rolling pin, and the table, and... Then, roll it out into a large rectangular shape, hang it carefully over the rolling pin and pull it over the cake.


Now, draw the outlines of your desired motif with food colour pens.

Last thing you do is:


Mix one egg white with about 400 g confectioner's sugar (sifted) and divide into several parts (each about one tablespoon) and stir in some food colour and, if not liquid enough, some drops of milk. 


Now, you can literally paint the cake :)


Have fun!

Cake Pops: Oreo Cream Cheese

Another thing I made for N.'s birthday (remember the lemon yoghurt cake?) were Oreo Cake Pops. Those are really simple to make, but were eaten up about 10 minutes after I had entered the room. 

All you need is:

250 g oreos
about 100 g cream cheese (I used 'Brunch', by the way.)
melted chocolate
sugar sprincles
 
Crumble up the oreos and add small amounts of cream cheese. Blend until the mass clumps together. It still looks crumbly after having been mixed for some minutes? Add a bit more cheese. I actually ended up with too much cheese, so that the mass was too sticky, so I had to add some crumbled lady's fingers to it.
Now form little balls out of the mass and leave them in the fridge for half an hour. When they are set, melt the chocolate and dip one end of the poker into it before poking it into the cake pop.

Then dip the whole pop into the melted chocolate and after having let excess chocolate drip off, dip the top of it into a small bowl of sugar sprinkles.

Lemon Yoghurt Cake

Another birthday, another cake. Even though I heard about the birthday party less than a day before ("Let's see who is spontaneous."), of course, I managed to make a cake :)

This cake is inspired by the Red Currant Yoghurt Cake I made for the 6-course menu. Well, it is actually the same cake, only without the red currant and lemon jelly powder instead of raspberry one. 

All you need is:

300 g lady's fingers (replaced half of it with oat flakes cookies)
100 g butter
2 sachets (for 500 ml each) lemon jelly (jello) powder
200 g sugar
500 g yoghurt
3 tbsp. lemon juice
200 g red currant
400 g single cream

Crumble the lady's fingers and cookies into pieces as small as possible. Melt the butter and mix it with the crumbs. Grease a 24cm baking tin (spring form) and fill it with the crumbs. Push the crumbs onto the bottom of the tin evenly, so that they form a cake base. Put the tin into the fridge to allow the cake base to set.
Meanwhile, mix the jelly powder with sugar and 250 ml water. Yes, 250 ml water altogether. <miss piggy mood> Trust me! </miss piggy mood>. Allow the powder to soak in some water and while it does so, pour the joghurt into a bowl and stir in the lemon juice.
Now, heat the jelly and water until all the powder and sugar is melted. Do not cook! Then, leave it to cool, stirring occasionally. When the (still liquid) jelly has cooled down a bit, pour it over the yoghurt and stir it in with a spoon until you get an even yellow mass. Whisk half the single cream until stiff. Then, fold into the yoghurt cream until the cream gets an even soft yellow colour.
Pour the cream into onto the cake base and leave it in the fridge for at least four hours.

When the cream is set, whisk the remaining single cream until stiff and cover the whole cake (take off  the frame of the springform pan, first) with whipped cream. Decorate it, if you like. I sprinkled on some glittery green sugar.

Cake Pops: Lady's Fingers and Honey Cream Cheese

Ok, what do you do when you have got loads of lady's fingers left and found this really yummie honey cream cheese? Right: Cake pops.

Well, these ones are super easy. You simply crumble up your lady's fingers and stir in the cream cheese by the spoonful until the whole mass clumps together (real mass, no crumble). That's it? Yes, that's it. Now form (or rather roll) the 'dough' into little balls or whatever form you like and leave them in the fridge for several hours to set. Then, melt some chocolate and dip the top of a lolly stick (or something similar) into the chocolate and poke it into one ball. This will prevent the dough from slipping from the stick when dipped into the chocolate. When the chocolate on the sticks is set, dip the cake pops one by one into the melted chocolate. Shake excess chocolate off gently and then place the pops into a glass, so that they can dry completely.

Everything you need:

lady's fingers
honey cream cheese (about half the amount of the lady's fingers)
melted chocolate
lolly sticks