lagkage

I've written about the infamous lagkage before.  Lagkage is the traditional birthday cake here in Denmark. Although funfetti cupcakes were a huge hit,  tradition usually wins in this country.

But noone makes lagkage like farmor does, definitely not me.  I made my first attempt just recently.  I made a surprise cake for a friend but it was quite the process!  End result was great cake but still just not quite Farmor's.

Enjoy our process!

Meet Wall-E who helped us along the way. 

My first attempt was to make the 'cake' part on my own at home.  It did not rise enough so into Farmor I went.  She was a good help.  "Let me see your teaspoon before you put it in" - clearly there are standard metrics and there are Farmor metrics.

But finally got a somewhat suitable cake made.  It wasn't perfect - still had problems rising all the way.  We think perhaps the eggs we used were too small.

We made the cake one day and let it cool and stored it at room temperature in a ziplock type bag for a day.  In the meantime the next steps involved decorations for this special cake.  Jeanette (who we made this cake for) is an archeologist - which may explain some forthcoming photos.

Once the outlines were made, then it was time to use the chocolate.  This was a Christian process, his meticulousness pays dividends on tasks like thisl

We went back to farmors to start the layering process.  We needed to make vanilla custard creme and let it cool, dice pinapples and whip cream from scratch.  First layer we used was raspberry jam.

Then came vanilla custard. Please note a concerned Farmor watching my every move, haha.

Up next was a level of chopped pineapples and more vanilla custard.

Layer of cake, and it was nearly finished and isnanely ugly looking.  However, that's the nice thing about lagkage.  Once you put on the marzipan, you would never know the difference!

Coated it with whipped cream. Wall-E is like the archeologist of the future - don't you think?  He goes around collecting things after a civilization is over... suiting helper I thought!

Rolled out the marzipan... (in between two plastic bags)

And on it went... with a giant crack... whoops.  Not too far from an archeological cake after all.

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However, the crack soon did not matter!  We used some sweet cookie crumbles as sand and ta-dahhhh... A little archeology dig cake!

She loved it... at least I'm pretty sure she did!  And I don't think she's ever had proper Farmor lagkage to compare it to, so no difference there!

Wall-E took some great notes so we can learn from mistakes and make the next one even better! :)

I can probably give you the recipe as it doesn't matter - you have to be farmor to make it as good as she does.  I found this recipe for the sponge cake layers that would be easiest for my US friends and family to try. 

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much love for the acquarius

I suppose there may actually something in the stars about me finding so many wonderful acquarians (spelling/use?) in my life.  Early - mid february is nearly filled daily with a close friend's birthday.

flowers from farmor - made by uncle bjarne

On the 4th of Feburary we celebrated swalshy.  Bring us to the 7th of February and it's Mike Prible's birthday.  The next day, the 8th (today) is Seb's birthday (happy birthday gorgeous girl!). The 11th is my one and only hubby's birthday.  The 14th is Christian's older brother's birthday and finally we have Carissa who is the 15th.  Phew... that's a lot of birthday wishes to remember!

Last week I baked cupcakes and we had a little happy hour in town with friends to celebrate my birthday a bit late and Chr's a bit early.  Funfetti cupcakes with cream cheese frosting with sprinkles on top - holy delicious!

They were a big hit. I was pleasantly surprised Christian's grandmother didn't wrinkle her nose to my box made creation - perhaps she didn't realize, haha.  

Over the weekend we celebrated Christian's best friends' little boy, Nicholas', 2nd birthday (another Acquarian!).  He was so sweet and so cute.

Sunday we celebrated yet some more with family brunch.  Champagne, french toast bake, egg bake and my ever so favorite, Farmor's homemade lagkage.  So good.  Even though the cake was technically for both of us, you'll note the decoration was very jilly. ;)

This weekend brings our celebration to for each other - a weekend getaway to Paris.  SO excited! Will be so great to get away and spend Christian's birthday and Valentine's Day in one of the world's most romantic cities!

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reception & cake

This post is dedicated to our reception and our CAKE. Don't read if you're hungry!

Christian's dad and grandma made our cake, once again.  They did not disappoint, once again!

Every part of this cake from the taste to the decoration was absolutely fantastic.  The cake consisted of a walnut flour cake layered with chocolate creme and white chocolate blueberry creme.  It was so absolutely delicious, I can't wait until next year to eat the top layer.

Speaking of top layer wedding anniversary cake, Christian and I ate our first wedding cake last night on our 'official'(?) first wedding anniversary.  YUM :)

Anyway, back to this recent cake.  I think the decoration is what meant the most to me.  Firstly, how Christian's dad found a plane with a bride and groom in it... is beyond me.  He found it while on vacation in Spain, too funny.  Christian is upset because I'm in the captain seat... but it's just the way the world works, babe.

So basically it's a run way coming from America (hence the American flag and Statue of Liberty) landing in Denmark (hence the Danish flag and The Little Mermaid statue).  How friggen cute?  It's little anecdotes like this that remind me of my own dad (he's one with cake creativity as well) and remind me how loved I am here!  I love it! :)

So we had what the Danes call a 'reception' after our ceremony before the dinner/party.  In Denmark it's common to invite some people just to the ceremony and the reception and then a smaller more intimate group to the dinner/party.  Of course I can't distinguish who should come to what so we had the same group the whole day.

We went to Uncle Bjarne's (flower uncle) house for wedding cake, light lunch, coffee and champagne.  

I learned the nifty trick of opening champagne with a saber.  Awesome.  It actually took several tries in two different attempts.  The first attempt lead to a pretty nasty butchering of the bottle into 5 pieces - I deemed it the viking way.  My second attempt came with some advice from Bjarne and wah-la it went perfectly.  Except for the part when Otto (their pup) chased after the broken top, haha.

The reception is also where the trampoline pictures come from.  Whyyyy not.  Someone said that if I was happy to jump on a trampoline in my wedding dress, I married into the right family.  Damn straight.

Such great weather and company.  Next post due is on the dinner/party at Christian's mom's house.

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wedding is this saturday!

There isn't much I can show you but I just got so excited last night when I got to see the start of decorating the tent.  Ahh I have to keep it mostly a surprise for our guests here but I can't wait to share the completed project. Kate you would die, haha.

Ok here's a smallll sneak peak but trust me it's nothing... this was taken while the other side of the tent was getting its makeover.

It's all going to come together and look absolutely perfect, I can't wait! 

I also helped make some of our wedding cake this week... well really just watched Christian's dad make it and taste everything to make sure it was good (sooo good).  It's a hybrid between traditional wedding cake and my favorite cake here (remember the birthday cake I wrote about?).  So excited.

There's still room - book your tickets! ;)

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birthday week in review

Yes it’s me. Me and my $14/mo neglected website. Whoops!

I think most of you know that since I got back from Denmark over the holidays everything has been absolutely manic.  Not even joking.  January turned into Tornaduary.

All things aside, life has been pretty great.   It’s a good thing to be busy… I’m pretty sure, anyway.  I was just in London last week for a few days, more on that some other time. This is my dedicated princess birthday blog post!

I turned 25 last Monday.  Richard (my boss) and I found ourselves to be the only ones willing to get a drink after dinner on monday night in the spirit of our birthday.  the birthday that we share… yes it’s weird… really weird. 

But my princess expectations of my birthday week were not forgone.  I celebrated on the Thursday night before I left for London with some friends at Cactus Club – my second home.  Went out a bit in London while I was there and then ultimately my hubby finished up my birthday week with a bang!

I got to Denmark on Wednesday night, completely shattered from sitting in a meeting room for three days straight.  In I walked to the bedroom to collapse and suddenly what did I see?!

My very own princess mirror!  I don’t think I complained a lot but Christian never had a full length mirror at his house.  This is obviously an issue.  Which was gracefully resolved by this beauty!  So shabby chic, I can’t believe he’s going to let me have my big girly mirror in his room!  Woop!

Better yet… Check out this hot Gaga inspired card he wrote me:

How friggggggen adorable is he?  He is my second half, my better half and more.  I love you, Christian!

Moving onwards with my birthday week… we went out Friday night to a tapas dinner in København and then out to the bars in Nørrebro with friends afterwards.  I finally found a bar in København that serves up proper margaritas.  Fresh ingredients (I nearly collapsed) and she knew what I meant when I said …. On the rocks no salt.  Rock on. 

I literally ran home at 5am… it was cold, I thought I was going to die.  Seriously… felt like I was in Antarctica wearing a cocktail dress and tights.  Whoops!  However, Christian told me that my “running” wasn’t much faster than he could walk behind me, pfft!

Saturday I didn’t emerge from my dyne until 1pm at which point operation cook dinner for 13 people commenced.  Slicing and dicing and baking and pan frying… We used every bowl, pot, pan and piece of silverware in our tiny kitchen!

Dinner was held across the terrace at Farmor’s house.  Lots of girly decorations (Thanks to Christian’s Uncle Bjarne for the gorgeous flowers).  Jilly style for sure.  Food was great, but we were so exhausted (and smelling pretty badly of onion and meatballs haha).  

In the end my birthday week celebrations culminated with drum roll please…LAGE KAGE…  whoa.  This the end all, be all for cakes.  I’ve been talking about my lage kage from Farmor for about a month now. 

It was obviously just as good as I dream about it (sick, I know).  The butterfly decoration was actually some teamwork between Christian and I and was made out of Marzipan. 

I suppose you want to know what “Pillefinger” means… basically it’s like poke/tickle finger.  It was a word I made up when I was trying to remember the different names of all the fingers in Danish.  It was kind of suiting, though.  I tend to poke and tickle Numsemund a lot.  I’ll let Christian explain his Numsemund nickname…

Or not.  I will.  It literally translates into “Buttmouth” hahaha.  I also made this up.  I think it sounds cute in Danish – and the fact that it’s absurd makes it all the better!  I am so clever!

And that was my princess birthday week in a big coconut shell.  I hope you had fun reading… or looking at the pictures.  I probably would have stopped reading by now.  :)

Love you monsters! Xx

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