Latvian Honey Cake for Jāņi

This year I finally got to join Eriks' family and Latvian friends in the celebration of Jāņi, or John's Day, a Latvian national holiday that takes place around the summer solstice. Since my family is mostly a mix of backgrounds and a number of generations removed from our first ancestors that crossed the Atlantic, I didn't grow up with any real cultural family traditions. So I was excited to participate in a holiday full of traditional Latvian practices and to get to meet some of the people Eriks has been celebrating John's Day with since he was a little boy. Though Eriks was unable to make it this year, I went with his brother, sister, and dad, and joined the group of about 50 people at the Kurmis' lakeside cabin for the weekend event.

I was amazed at how traditional it was, between the eating Jāņu cheese, homemade rye bread, and pirogi; singing of Latvian folk songs and listening to the history of John's Day from Britta's great-aunt; sitting around bonfires and jumping over them; and picking wildflowers to make crowns (vinjas) for the women and oak leaf crowns for men named "John" in honor of their name day.

Since there was going to be an outdoor potluck, I took the opportunity to contribute a cake. I googled "Latvian cake recipe" (seriously, what did people do before google?) and came across this Latvian honey cake recipe, which, while different from other cakes I've made in terms of its ingredients, was a hit and really yummy. It was a five-layer pancake-like cake made only of honey, flour, eggs and baking soda, with a filling of crushed walnuts and sweetened sour cream. Initially I was a little skeptical about the filling, but the combination of flavors was delicious!

I made two of these cakes and decorated their edges with fondant oak leaves and flowers to mimic the vinjas. This was my first time using petal dust on the leaves and flowers and I was pleasantly surprised by the depth it gave them.

Below are some photos of the baking process, and I'll be posting some pictures soon from our fun John's Day celebration on my photo blog if you're interested :)

Cake: Latvian Honey Cake
Frosting: Lemon Buttercream

Happy John's Day!

Valentine's Day Sweets

Last week I had my first cake-making experience since moving to Minneapolis about a month ago. Eriks's friend requested a Valentine's day inspired cake for the four of us (Eriks, me, Matt and his fiancee) to eat together the Friday before Valentine's day and I took him up on the challenge. He actually only requested one cake, but since I already had a small heart-shaped cookie cutter, I thought it would be fun to make a bunch of mini-cakes inspired by the traditional v-day candy hearts. My friend Christine came over Thursday and we made these cute little cakes along with some wickedly delicious peanut butter truffles. We had a lot of fun making these sweets for our sweethearts and eating them too! Below are some photos of the cake-making process. Enjoy and happy Valentine's day!

Petit fours: Lemon pound cake, blueberry filling, lemon cream cheese frosting, fondant

Baby Shower

So this cake narrowly escaped becoming a cake wreck, and because of this I didn't take any photos of the baking process, but below are some pictures of Shannon and soon-to-be big sister Carsyn with the cake at the shower. Enjoy & congrats to the Cunninghams!

Top layer: White cake with pineapple coconut buttercream filling
Bottom layer: Chocolate cake with whipped blueberry buttercream filling

Giants

So the Giants took the world series this year, and while I wouldn't call myself the biggest baseball fan, I did swoop on the opportunity to make some Giants-themed cakes for a few of the Giants fans in my life. With the help of my friends, Sara & Molly, we baked up a storm last Saturday and made these two cakes for the social hour after church on Sunday.

Fear the Beard Cake:
White cake (with orange food coloring)
Chocolate fudge frosting (with black food coloring)
Orange colored fondant

Jersey Cake:
Chocolate cake
Pumpkin cream cheese frosting
White fondant

Weddings!

So October seems to be the month of weddings, at least for people in my life. I have one more next weekend, which will make a total of three weddings this month! Needless to say, October has been very busy, but also very fun.

For the second of the three weddings, I was recruited by my friend Sarah (whom I made bridal shower cupcakes for a few weeks ago) to decorate her wedding cake. I guess the person that was originally going to make her cake canceled on her two weeks before the wedding and Sarah was in a pickle. She only asked me to make a few flowers, but I happily offered to decorate the whole thing and get my first real wedding cake experience. I opted not to bake it because Eriks was coming out for the wedding and I didn't want to spend all of his visit working on cakes. So Sarah ordered a vanilla three-tier cake from Safeway, frosted and filled with a basic buttercream, that I was able to get Saturday morning before the 5 o'clock wedding.

I made all of the fondant and decorations during the week before the wedding, and on Saturday morning picked up the cake from Safeway and got to work. We actually had a really nice time doing it, though my estimate of one hour's work was three hours shy of the amount of time it took! There were a few trying moments, namely when I was failing at rolling out the fondant for the bottom 16” layer, but Eriks provided the moral support I needed to make it through (have I mentioned that he is the best??). Transporting the three individual tiers from Pacifica to Fremont and then assembling them on site was also a little nerve-wracking, but we were successful. Seeing how happy Sarah was when she saw the cake made me glad that I decided to give it a shot. Below are some photos of the decorating process and the beautiful couple enjoying their cake.

Sketch & swatch of bridesmaids' dresses to match fondant color to

Decorations from fondant made in advance

Smallest tier and fondant ready to be rolled out

Prepping the fondant
Had to do a few touch-ups on site once we stacked the tiers
So happy to be done and that it worked!Finished productCutting the cake...and giving it a taste

Congratulations Sarah & Chuck, and thanks for letting me decorate your cake!