Desserts and Sweet Treats | Finding Feasts

Checkered Birthday Cake – Dirt Block Minecraft Cake

Finding Feasts - Checkered Minecraft Cake — Click on image for recipe

Checkered Birthday Cake – Dirt Block Minecraft Cake… It was my son’s birthday last week and of course the cake was left to the very last minute. Considering last year’s cake was a hasty store bought chocolate cake that I threw coloured specks at, surrounded with plastic rings and stuck a Power Rangers dude on – which he absolutely loved – I knew the last resort would be, at the very least something similar. I mean really, I have yet to hear of a kid having a tantrum when they saw their cake on their birthday, so long as it has candles, colour and people singing “Happy Birthday” you really can’t go wrong… but I still had hope that I could pull something spectacular out of a hat.

With only 2 days left, finally an idea comes to me… Minecraft!

Minecraft is his greatest love at the moment and I can’t believe that it didn’t hit me sooner. So with the clock fast ticking down, I needed a plan of action and unfortunately it was too late to pay someone else to make it – I had to do it myself.

Action plan…

Thursday: Make the sponge cakes – I ended up with 3 usable ones out of 5 made
Friday: Construct a work of art with fondant – Well it kind of resembled what I had finally decided on

What I was actually going to construct from the Minecraft game was still being tossed around at lunch on Friday, but settled on a dirt block (I realise that unless you know even the basics of this game a dirt block birthday cake just seems too strange for words).

Now, I love to sculpt and had this picture in my head of a beautiful dirt block that was going to wow all the kids (and anyone else who’s eye-line would pass across this Minecraft beauty) but being realistic I knew I needed something that would make this mound of dirt even more spectacular, just in case the outside wasn’t what I was hoping for.

Checkered sponge on the inside! The idea was to have the 8bit effect on the inside just in case the outside failed to represent that effect to my expectation. We want pixels!

I am very fortunate to have an amazing friend who is a stunning cake designer and was able to give me a few hours of mentoring on the Friday, who without guidance (and some tools) this would have been quite a unique cake, to say the least.

All up it was a great first attempt at cake sculpting and will next year aim to start something like this 2 weeks prior!

Oh… and complete respect to all cake makers/artists out there, it’s insanely hard to master sugar and they deserve every single dollar that they charge for their designs!

Happy Birthday… from mum (Blondie) xxx

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Joulutorttu – Finnish Prune Tarts

Finding Feasts - Finnish Prune Tarts - joulutorttu — Click image for recipe

One of the most traditional of traditions for a Finn is the making of joulutorttu – finnish prune tarts.

These are a labour of love if you choose to make your own jam and dough. The pastry needs to be made the day before and left overnight in the fridge. The Prunes in Port and Spice Syrup can be made weeks prior… just make sure you make enough so you can have them on ice cream!

You can use any jam of your choice but traditionally it’s a prune jam.

These are wonderful and festive, Christmas just isn’t Christmas till these come out.

Have a very Merry Christmas everyone!

Blondie 🙂

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Prunes in Port and Spice Syrup

Finding Feasts - Prunes in Spiced Port Syrup — Click image for recipe

Prunes in Port and Spice Syrup, Christmas is only 10 weeks away so Bella and I are going to start getting our traditional Finnish and Polish recipes together.

This one is in preparation for the Finnish prune tarts that are eaten at Christmas time, although I have done it slightly different to traditional recipes, in that I have added some traditional Christmas spices to the port.

Finnish Christmas’ are celebrated on the 24th of December (in case you were wondering, Santa generally sneaks into the house while we are all around the dinner table, or conveniently distracted by something amazing) with huge feasts of hams and other roast meats, casseroles and salads – mum does an incredible beetroot and herring salad that’s just so scrumptious and works perfectly with the heat of the Australian Christmas. There are also lots of sweet dishes eaten but the main two that we grew up with are gingerbread biscuits and Finnish prune tarts – joulutorttu.

This prune in port syrup recipe is for making the prune jam that goes into the centre of the tarts – the jam is normally made with just prunes, sugar and water then pushed through a sieve or blitzed in a processor till it’s to a jam consistency. I have decided to have the prunes soak in the port and spice syrup till I make the tarts, which will be in a couple of weeks… I was also craving the syrup, warmed up, on ice cream – a girls to satisfy her cravings!

Don’t be put off with the idea of prunes as once you have tried them this way there’s no going back…

Blondie 🙂

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Korvapuusti – Pulla aka Finnish Cardamom Scrolls

Finding Feasts | Pulla Sweet Finnish Cardamom Bread — Click image for recipe

Pulla – a cardamom laced, sweet Finnish bread – that is devoured by the truck load by the Finns! Eaten with coffee, this bread is as traditional as Karelian Pies.

There are 3 main ways of having them… round like a plain bun, plaited into a loaf which is sliced (grandpa’s favourite, along with a very thick slathering of butter on top, dipped into his strong coffee) and finally the scrolls with sugar and cinnamon rolled through it. The later is my favourite way of having them, along with every kid who ever gets a chance to try them.

I have done two recipes for this Pulla, one for hand kneading and one if using a bread maker (coming up shortly). They are slightly different, but both work beautifully.

I also have another recipe coming up – Pulla bread and butter pudding – after burning my first batch of hand kneaded Pulla. There was no way I was going to let all that effort go to waste!

Enjoy!

Blondie

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Makowiec – Polish Poppy Seed Cake

Picking my first recipe for the blog was exciting, challenging and scary! It brought back very special memories of growing up.

When we moved to Australia, mum tried her best to keep a traditional Polish kitchen but it was always subject to seasonal produce and the Australian climate. Having a traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner on the 24th of December was a little difficult in 35 degree heat! However, hats off to mum as she has done an amazing job keeping a Polish kitchen.

For my first blog I have attempted to make my very first Makowiec…Poppy Seed Cake. Makowiec is very popular with Poles especially during Easter and Christmas and delicious with a cup of coffee! It’s actually very rare to turn up to a Polish party and not have this cake on the menu!

The combination of poppy seeds and the yeasty cake gives it a lovely moist, crunchy like texture. The key to a successful poppy seed cake is to ensure that you mince the poppy seeds 3-4 times to ensure you get rid of the grittiness. Yes, it is a little labour intensive, however the taste is amazing… just ask Blondie.

Making the cake for the first time suddenly gave me an appreciation of the great care mum took with the yeast to ensure that it would rise. There were times when the dough would be wrapped in a warm blanket and put in a dark warm place, away from noise to make it grow. I remember how mum would whisper that noise would spoil the dough and it would not grow, I used to giggle at this theory.

On my 2nd attempt, when the dough failed I found myself suddenly applying all of mum’s old school techniques… no matter how strange they were!

My main tip for this cake is to use fresh yeast when possible, the results are much better…and yes, the whispering helps!

Bella

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