Sunday Sweets: Merry & Bright
December 21, 2014 We're in the final stretch before Christmas, so here's hoping you can all kick back and relax with loved ones for the next few days.
The letters to Santa have been sent...
;)
(By Cakes Decor member Cake Heaven)
The gifts have been wrapped...
;)
(By Sandra Monger Cake Design)
The lights are all rigged...
;)
(By Adorn Cake Design)
"Now why are they BLINKING?"
And if you're really lucky, you've even got time for a few crafts:
;)
(By The Violet Cake Shop)
Anyone into quilling out there? Especially loving those flowers.
Or better yet, maybe you've got time for CAKE.
;)
(By Queen B's Bakery, featured here)
I'd never think to add pink and blue with red and green, but it totally works!
Or how about a soft mint with pearl and silver accents?
;)
(By Cakes Decor member Dolca Llepolia)
Love that snow texture on the middle tier.
Here's a funky modern design with hand-drawn ornaments:
;)
(By Man Bakes Cake)
Fun!
And John thought this binging Santa was hilarious:
;)
(Baker Unknown (anyone?), found here)
I would make a crack about fruitcake here, but I'm told it can actually be super delicious. Bring on the evidence, bakers; I'm willing to be convinced. ;)
This one looks like an abstract forest fairy, and I love it:
;)
(By Blissfully Sweet)
Look at that skirt of leaves, and the little braided belt! SO SWEET.
A stunning stained glass design:
;)
(By Hazel Wong Cake Design for Christmas in Frostington)
Ahhh, pretty as a greeting card.
And finally, for those of you celebrating Hanukkah, the prettiest Sweet I could find this year:
;)
(By Rosebud Cakes)
Those colors! Take note, bakers: THIS is how you airbrush. Love it.
Well, whatever you're celebrating this season, here's hoping it's merry and bright - with extra sprinkles on top. ;)
Be sure to check out our Sunday Sweets Directory to see which bakers in your area have been featured here on Sweets!
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Reader Comments (38)
Simply beautiful! It would break my heart to cut into those cakes. Happy Holidays to everyone!
Binging santa is hysterical XD the others are so pretty and well done, makes me wish you can keep them forever
I love the Binging Santa.
I make my own fruitcake every year and eat it til I'm sick. Do this: Substitute dried tropical fruit (pineapple, mango, and papaya) instead of the weird citron fruit. Add cherries and raisins, and you will not get enough.
Wow, they did such a great job on the reindeer! I can feel them saying, "Here we go again, fat man..." while Rudolph (who just started leading the sleigh team) is worried Mrs Clausten will blame him for the big guy's bender!
As usual, they are all terrific. My favorite is the one with all the ornaments -- what mad skills! I also enjoy the binging Santa. Love those expressions on the reindeer!
The best part of the binging Santa is the annoyed looks from the waiting reindeer. There are backstories here!
I can't tell you who baked the fabulous Santa-ate-and-now-is-resting cake, but I can tell you that's a British style of cake: a heavy cake batter with dried fruits, a layer of marzipan (almond) icing and then the top layer is fondant.
This style is used for wedding cakes as well as other event cakes. That's one tradition that DIDN'T cross the pond.
The drunken/cake-coma santa in a fruitcake is actually from an advertising campaign here in the UK for the sugar company 'Billingtons'. The campaign was called "Someone's been baking with Billingtons".
http://www.ipa.co.uk/agencies/the-gate-worldwide-limited/gallery/boxed/someones-been-baking-with-billingtons/272#.VJbxuv8AU
http://thegateworldwide.com/london/campaigns/billingtons/
http://www.newsworks.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/News/Latest%20News/Newspaper%20ads/xmas_billingtons.jpg
I loved fruit cake growing up. Pollman's was an eagerly waited gift from the neighbors and we wrapped it in rum soaked cheese cloth and ate sparingly to keep it going as long as possible. When my mother died, I found a piece in the back of the freezer (the neighbor had died a decade earlier) - that is how precious good fruit cake is to our family. I recently had a piece that was as good as that, but there are a lot of mediocre fruit cakes out there which give it its bad rap.
CW has jaundiced my eye. I look at these decorator's gems and in my mind's eye, I see what the wreckerators would do with each concept.
Love the Santa who ate the cake first!
Question on cake no. 3: do you know if they made the beautiful platter the cake is sitting in, or is it just a plate? If they made it, even bette!
Susie- I have had that style of cake (here in the states) and LOVED it! I wish it was more popular.
As for those reindeer I think the artist copied expressions from my dachshund. (although he would have have helped Santa eat the cake)
Jen: I snorted my coffee on the keyboard (again!) when you asked "Now why are they blinking?"! I thought it was safe to drink coffee during Sunday Sweets?!
@Alison in Indiana: Yes, that's the spirit (pun intended)! I blame the Temperance Movement in the U.S. for fruitcake's bad rap. People started leaving out the booze.
A proper fruitcake should be moist: not gluey, but pleasantly toothsome. It should contain so much dried or candied fruit and nuts that the batter just holds the whole thing together. It should be spicy enough to pleasantly warm your tongue. It should be so boozy that it perfumes the room with your chosen tipple (white wine, rum, whiskey, whatever) and the nuts are translucent. Even better, if your fruitcake was made in an oblong pan, each slice should curl away from the knife like fresh bread and you should be able to hold it up and see a little light through it. And two small slices should get you tipsy.
My mom makes an awesome fruitcake! It is delicious...she uses spice cake and marshmallow cream :)
Yay, Lindsey, for finding the Billington's binging Santa! Poor Rudolph will get blamed....
Emily M. is right - don't use that awful "candied fruit" from the grocery store. Just use dried fruit - try cherries, diced apricots, and cranberries - and plenty of walnuts or pecans. It's wonderful!
I also love the simplicity of the parcel cake by Sandra Monger, and the lovely Habukkah cake. Happy Christmas to you, Jen and John!
I love all of these, but there's no way I could eat those adorable little reindeer waiting for Santa to recover!
When I had the opportunity to spend some time with a family of Australians a few years back, I was surprised to discover that fruitcake is not a despised or joke dessert to them. It's a highly-anticipated part of the festivities. And it is much richer and more delicious than I expected—as noted above, there is a layer of marzipan over-laid with a layer of fondant.
I agree with those who have said they'd hate to cut into those cakes. They're beautiful! Thank you for the beauty of the season captured in cake.
As for good fruitcake, I don't have a recipe, but the Collins Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas has it down pat! I don't like fruitcake, generally speaking, but I love theirs! It's the only fruitcake I'll eat. It's not hockey puck dry or weird tasting from whatever that aftertaste is that some dried fruits in fruitcake can have. It's honestly delicious.
For a great-tasting fruitcake, try this recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/free-range-fruitcake-recipe.html
We make two versions every year: one with booze for the grown-ups, one with apple juice for the kids. We omit the nuts entirely for allergy reasons & it's still so-o-o good. (And none of those scary-looking day-glo candy fruits.)
Hurrah for the people who praised British fruitcake. It is indeed delicious, though a small slice goes a long way. It is the custom at weddings to send friends a slice of the wedding (fruit-)cake by post if they have been unable to attend, something that would be utterly impossible with a light cake. Also, from a strictly structural view, a strong fruitcake will support multiple tiers without sagging.
Like everyone else, I love the disgusted reindeer! Thanks, Lindsey, for telling us the source.
As for fruitcake, my husband and I are currently "binging" on my mother's version. It is just a good spice cake recipe with added glace fruit and nuts. I think fruitcake got its reputation from the cheap versions they sold in drug stores when I was a child in the 50s, not to mention the badly made ones people were urged to send soldiers in the war. (Though according to my father the guys he was with would eat ANYTHING if it came from home!)
The booze-drenched fruitcake is one style among many, and most popular in the US, where fruitcake is rarely eaten outside the Christmas season. The alcohol allowed fruitcakes to be stored for months or years, a consideration if you were making them in advance for gifts or just to save until Christmas. In most of Europe (and earlier in US history) fruitcakes of various styles are eaten all year. These might include rum as a flavoring, or have liquor poured on them before serving, but they aren't typically soaked in liquor. That wouldn't be very practical as an everyday dessert or teacher. Many are traditionally served with no liquor added. Either way is authentic, though the soaked kind is the more modern style. I will continue to enjoy fruitcakes flavored with rum or bourbon, and avoid the soggy kind. That way I can have more. I haven't done it in years, but making fruitcake is fun, and ingredients can be adjusted to your tastes easily. Try that and fruitcake may not be a joke to you, but a treat.
A proper fruitcake should be made at the end of October and fed a steady diet of brandy/cognac until just before the holiday dinner. There are several fabulous recipes on the BBC website.
Jen,
The best fruitcake I have ever had is from the company Southern Supreme. I didn't like fruitcake either until I tried theirs. Highly recommended.
Maureen
P.S. It was great to see you in Pittsburgh!
Please tell me "Now why are they BLINKING?" is a reference to a certain song because, if it is, I love that song!
The candied fruit that goes into a "traditional" fruit cake is noxious. If you want a GOOD fruit cake, skip American/British ones and get an ITALIAN fruit cake. Panetonne is delicious! I also love the non-fruited pandoro, but that's really hard to find in the US.
The Santa/reindeer cake is so funny---especially the expressions on the reindeer faces.
Wonderful Chanukah cake too!
I never realised how different American fruitcake was to the British/Aussie version. It makes no difference to me, though, as I hate sultanas, raisins and currants. Just give me chocolate instead :)
Its sounds odd to us here in UK that you would think a Christmas or Wedding cake wouldn't be a traditional fruit recipe. Alcoholl is optional, we have teetotallers in the family, and these days sponge cakes are served as wedding and Christmas cakes, this lady also has wonderful British goodies http://www.deliaonline.com/
and then there is Great British Bake off http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013pqnm
This year I made one huge washing up bowl of cake mixture (batter is for pancakes!!or yorkshires) and have baked 4 cakes for my family, each covered in marzipan and Royal icing (fondant is too new to be traditional!)
Since no one mentioned it, I thought I'd say....
You get bonus points for the Bob Rivers reference. Twisted Christmas is one of mine and hubby's favorite Christmas albums. We don't often listen to "normal" Christmas songs in my family. We're just too weird for that. So bring on your Christmas novelty songs and parodies. The stranger, the better. I'll be singing "Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire" off key right there with you!
I made my dad's aunt's recipe for fruitcake last year...(need to get on it this year.) The batter is light and densely packed with fruit and nuts and brown sugar, and no booze. (My aunt was a Free Methodist.) It's ridiculously delicious--a bit of a pain to make, but delicious. Which reminds me...I need to go buy raisins....
No. 3 is my favorite. I guess at heart I just love simplicity. Very nice assortment all around, though. :)
Love the "shout-out" to the 12 Pains of Christmas," my favoriate Christmas song.
"Fine, you're so smart, you rig up the lights!"
I have a recipe for a chocolate cherry fruitcake that people tell me isn't a fruitcake. I don't know why; it has lots of fruit (dried cherries soaked in kirshwasser, a cherry brandy) and nuts suspended in a rich batter (almost as rich as a good brownie batter) and soaked in booze for several weeks (more kirsh). Sounds like a fruitcake to me.
Fruit cake isn't usually a "dessert" in Australia or Britain, though. You have a slice with a cup of tea or coffee.
There is an excellent and super easy recipe if you've not had proper moist, full-of-fruit fruitcake before - just google Weight Watchers Mocha Fruit Cake. Basically dried mixed fruit (usually currants, sultanas and raisins), coffee, block of chocolate and flour. I freeze individual slices so it lasts more than a day or two LOL
A true fruitcake has royal icing over the marzipan, not fondant. My mother was from England and she and my father had a traditional English wedding cake of fruitcake, marzipan, and royal icing. I wanted the same when I married. I could find only one baker who knew what I wanted, and he flat-out refused to do it. It was too labor intensive!
We love royal icing over properly made UK rich fruit cake and marzipan. More marzipan, less icing is the winner here... This year though sadly I only got time to decorate the cake on Christmas Eve so we're slumming it with fondant icing (rolled as thin as I dared).
Soak the fruit before baking, not so soggy, but so aromatic with your chosen tipple (brandy in our house)
Bake the cake in October... a long slow bake as the cake is mostly fruit just about glued together with cake mixture. It is wrapped in several layers of paper OUTSIDE the tin before going in the oven to ensure the edges don't scorch.
Once cool, stab with a skewer all over bottom and dribble in about a shot of tipple... double wrap in greaseproof paper and foil, check and re-do the stab&tipple every few weeks until decorated in the last couple weeks before Christmas.
Royal icing lasts AGES too. It dries firm and seals the cake in.
This cake will last AGES even once cut. Some years we'll have a little piece every day and it'll still take us until February to finish it. Only one slice if you're driving!
The first cake appears to have botanically accurate blooms of Helleborus niger, which is known as the Christmas rose because it flowers in late December. That is how you impress a gardener.
This blog is awesome. Thanks for posting. I don't know much about cakes or baking but I have seen plenty.