Afternoon tea party at home

 

I was thinking that after a long time, I might continue posting my baking adventures here. :) 

Since I started my graphic design business, working at home, 

I might have more time to keep up with it. 

We have visited London recently, and we wanted to recreate the atmosphere of their traditional "Afternoon Tea" for our families.

I made sandwitches, I baked English scones, and little desserts. And of course we served tasty rich flavours of teas, and a bubbly champagne and we listened to nice music.

Even though you need time to prepare everything, it is much more affordable having afternoon tea at home. 

I brought the scone recipe I followed, and the pink sandwich cookie recipe.

Pastry shop gingerbread house

Merry Christmas!

I hope you had a nice year in 2019, mine was quite eventful, I didn't have time to bake a lot, or explore new recipes as I was studying graphic design besides working, and doing my driving license. :) 

But for Christmas, I can not resist, I am baking a LOT! :D

I started of course with gingerbread cookies, and my tradition to bake a gingerbread house for Hungary's biggest gingerbread village in Budapest. It is a free exchibition, held in the Bálna shopping mall, and volunteers like me bake the houses. Each year it is getting bigger, many families bake, and besides the adorable houses, famous and creative buildings are built as well, like the Big Ben, our Chain Bridge, Star Wars space ships, or in 2016 I baked the Gru's house. (Check previous years' review posts here) It will be open in January untill the end of February.

So, this year I baked a pastry shop with many happy customers. :) 

The recipe was the same I used in all of my previous gingerbread cookies recipes.

Let's see the steps, and the final photos below!

Gingerbread-house village 2018

Hi Dears, 

Christmas is on the corner, and it means only one thing --> we can eat as many gingerbreads as we can shamelessly, as we will start the diet, anyway on New Year's Day, right? 

Oh yeah. 

But now, I won't just eat them, I participated again, for the third time in a wonderful event here in Budapest, where we bake and share our own gingerbread houses. We place them together in an exhibition hall in the Bálna Shopping Mall, and we build a magical gingerbread-house village again. Every building has its unique style, and we can see fantastic ideas year-by-year. I am very excited to see this year's opening.

The exhibition will be open from 22-Dec until the end of February, except the days of Christmas, and on New Year's Day.

You can check their site here:

https://www.mezeskalacsvaros.hu/

Here in the post I show my gingerbread house, and some sneak-peeks of the "placing-event" of the house.

If you are interested in my previous year's creations click here:

Gru's and the Minion's house 

http://hungarianfoodguide.blogspot.com/2017/01/baking-grus-house-with-minions.html

Pretty snowy gingerbread-house

http://hungarianfoodguide.blogspot.com/2015/11/gingy-house-project.html

Carrot cake 2

Hi Dears,

I brought today another carrot cake recipe, I recently baked it for one of my colleague's farewell party. It's a little bit different from my first one. 

(If you wish to compare, click here.) 

You have might realized that I stopped posting recipes here this year, the reason is that I am quite busy to try out and make experiments with new recipes. I do bake regularly, but I tend to bake my favorite recipes over and over with only slight changes. 

The reason of my busyness, is that I have started another school, this time I study graphic design, where I can develop my artistic skills. :) 

You can view my continuously growing art portfolio here: 

https://hajnalkart.blogspot.com/

Also, I have found a new hobby, while I am taking care of a lovely dwarf hamster. I started making  short videos of him, with gentle music in the background. The aim is to create something cute, funny, calming and safe for children to watch. 

If you wish to check them click: Hamster Tales

Now let's get back to the cake...

Baking our wedding cake ♥

Hello Friends! 

The most beautiful day in my life (so far) was in June, we got married with the love of my life.

I was so excited, I wanted to do nearly everything by myself, the decor, the organizing, and yes... The cake! Now I wouldn't suggest it to any brides to bake their own wedding cake, as the days before the big day are already stressful enough, but it was so nice that I could tell to our guests, that I BAKED IT! 

The cake itself was a 4 layered cake, each layer with different tastes. And I baked a separate gluten-free cake, about 50 muffins for the dessert table and 160 heart shaped gingerbread as Thank you gifts.

Yes, I know, I am weird to do all this, but I loved baking them. The most stressful part of this was the way to the venue, as we had to deliver all this with our car, with the rest of the decoration and wedding dress. Fortunately, we could divide all these in two cars. 

So, In this post I will show you more details how I baked this huge cake, and the rest of the sweets. (And some insight into our wedding)

Baking Gru's house with Minions

Hey! I wish you a Very Happy New Year! 

I hope you had wonderful Holidays, and if you baked like me the whole time, 

I think we all wish to have a good rest now. :) 

OMG last year it was a really busy season for me, (you could guess, that is why I haven't been posting lately) I changed my workplace, and I have a financial office job again, so baking got back to my hobby again... 

But I still bake a lot, like every weekend, I even took some photos of them, just I missed to upload them, sorry. However, you can follow some of them on our Facebook page. ;) 

I baked a lot for Christmas, too, lots of cookies, islers, linzers, gingerbread and yes... A Gingerbread house. A really special one, I baked Gru's house! :D

Testing post - Knife challenge

Hi Dears, 

I got a super exciting request to test and review honestly a hand-made professional knife.

 I got the chance to use this knife for some weeks to be able to provide my opinion on it. 

I accepted, as I was curious, and it didn't need too much effort on my side, as I cook every weekend, anyway. I tried as many things to cut as I could in the past three weeks.

(It is not a sponsored post, I highlight it again, these will be my honest lines. :) ) 

Wedding season started

Hi Dears, 

Summer just started, that means we can go on our holidays soon, but also that means that the WEDDING Season started, too. :)

There is a time in everybody's life when wedding means a lot to us, especially when we are having our own.

As I started to plan our own wedding, I realised that I know too little about weddings. I had an idea in my had, how I imagined my perfect wedding, me and my fiancé happily say yes to each other somewhere in the nature. 

But organising it to be perfect is a much more difficult job.

So, I decided to study wedding planning. :) Soon I will have my degree on it, who knows, besides mine, I will be able to plan other's special big day, too. :D

Ours will be next year if everything goes well, but this year one of my best friends had her wedding. 

It was her idea, to make bon-bons for the guests as a thank you gift. Of course I helped her make them :)

+ The same week one of my high school teacher, who I really liked, asked me to bake a wedding cake for her daughter. I was so afraid of it, as it was my first time to bake such an important cake :) Would I succeed? Will they like it? But she trusted me, and the cake was only 20 pieces so I accepted the challenge, and baked it.

They asked a carrot cake with white icing on top, no marzipan or fondant, and to decorate the top with the icing itself, modestly, and to have a note Mazel tov.

I enjoyed baking and decorating it, as they allowed me to go on my taste, I didn't have to follow any other guidelines. 

Carrot Cake for Easter

Hi Dears, 

As Easter is coming I brought you a tasty Carrot cake with marzipan decorations (carrots and a little bunny)

Follow the recipe below, and bake it for your family! :D 

Punch Cake

Hey Guys! :)

Happy New Year, to all of You!

I will continue baking this year, too, so I hope you will stay with me, so we can share more recipes and goodies with each other.

Today I brought a Punch Cake, do you have another name for it? I don't know, if it is right, it refers to the punch drink with rum, not the punching movement. Like I would cry if somebody would use my cake to punch in the face....

I baked this cake for one of my favourite teachers who requested it to her family. I am so glad they liked it, if it wasn't the case I wouldn't post it now. :D

I even made a video of the decorating part! Watch it! :)

What did I bake for Christmas? :) Holiday Special

Happy Holidays Dears!

I let you peek into my baked goods for Christmas. 

Gingy house project

Hi Dears,

So, I baked Gingerbread the first time of this year.

I know it is not even winter, yet, and You don't want to hear about Xmas yet, (do You?), but I have a deadline for baking a gingerbread house for the Advent season.

We will have a Gingy town, a complete town from gingerbread houses, in a big shopping mall in the centre of Budapest (in the Bálna from December 6). So, I participated in this event, and I have to give this house to the city, so all the children, families , and any passers-by can see our creations in one beautiful gingy town.

I am so excited to see my little house in a complete mini-town.

I brought You some pictures about the preparation, and of course I baked "normal" gingies as well. :D

Toffifee Cake

Hi Dears!

I hope You are not sick, like me, now. I'm just sitting here with my headache and flue, sipping hot tea, and a thought just came to me, to post this recipe to You.

A good cake can be a medicine, right?

I baked this cake twice, two days after each other.

Both were birthday cakes for my fiancé. One for his colleagues (Such a good employee, I think working with him can be great, he even brings the cake for his own birthday :D ) 

And they liked it sooo much, that he wanted the same cake for the family celebration.

First, I was just experiencing, but for the second I baked it consciously, and the result was even better.

Hey, I became a pastry cook! A confectioner!

Hello Guys! :)

Finally my confectioner school ended, I passed the final baking exam, and now I have my pastry cook degree in my hands! :D

In this post I am writing about the exam, which was nearly 10 hours long. 

We knew that it would be a tough day, and it really was...

Cream Bun - Képviselő fánk (Congressmen Bun)

Hi Dears!

Today I brought another popular Hungarian confection that we call "Képviselő fánk", which means Congressmen Bun.

To be honest I didn't really care why it had its unusual name for a bakery product, we just call it like that, no big deal. 

But as I am writing this recipe for you now, I looked it up, and I found the explanation. This product became popular in the 19th century, when café houses were common, and people could afford to buy confections on a daily basis. Even the buffets had cakes and these creamy bakery products in their variety, and according to the legend, this was the most popular bun among the congressmen in the buffet of the House of Parliament. 

Now I wonder what is the menu there, if there are any buffets today... :)

Nero

Hi Dears,

Today, I brought You little, sweet sandvich-looking darlings, that you can find in all of the traditional confectioneries in Hungary. 

When I was a trainee in one of them, for almost half a year, I filled thousands of these with jam. The fun part (which I think is the fun part) is to create the shells with the decorating bag, was always the professional's job, as that was the part where the neros could go wrong. Each and every neros should be the same size to look beautiful in a plate.

The other big challenge while baking it, is actually the baking time. One second you see them unbaked, in the next second they are burned. 

If you ask any confectioners which product burns the most, they would answer the neros.  

However, the customers love them, and so do we.

Why? After you fill them with jam, give them 2-3 hours (in the confectioneries they even give them 2-3 days to let them soften) and you will have the softest, and the tastiest  little sweet sandwiches of the World. 

I don't really know why we have the 'Macaron craziness' everywhere, when we have a much more delicious sweet, yes if you like the colors, you can color this sponge, too. And yes you can use any kind of filling for this sweet, too, like ganache, cream, etc..

So, Neros I am cheering for You, to win over Macarons!!!

Cottage cheese Cake with nectarine

Hi Dears,

I have 2 months till my final exam at my pastry school, and I still have some pastries, cakes, and creams to practice.

Last week I baked two of them, neros (which are little soft biscuits filled with jam - you can have the recipe in my following post) and this Cottage cheese cake. 

We celebrated my fiancé's grandma's Name Day as well, so the cake was my gift to her. :)

I am short in time as now I have a full time job, and at home we are under a home renovation. 

If I had more time I would cover the cake side with cream and maybe cover it with almonds, it would make the cake even more beautiful and would give a finished look. Anyway, I didn't bake it, just to look at it, we cut it right away, I took it from the fridge, and believe me it was tasty! In this hot summer it was great refreshment as we cooled it for 3 hours in the fridge.

Baking projects, life updates...

Hello Dears,

Long time, no see, right?

But now, I have lot's of projects to show You!!!

Well, some of them you may had seen on our FB  page, but let's see them all..

Lot's of baking projects, cakes, competition, celebrations, a vacation and a new job!

Baking a Painting

Hello!

This is a nostalgic post from me, as I did this project years ago... But I think it is still one of my greatest creations of all, so I brought it to You.

One of my favorite painter was Pál Szinyei Merse, who lived in the XIX. century to the early XXth. 

I wanted to make a cake replica of his "Majális" painting. I used colored white chocolate for the background, and marzipan for the figures.

How to make a Cat Cake

Hi Dears,

Today I brought You an easy technique for making a cat shaped cake. :)