Christmas Red Velvet Snow Cake

Ohhhh my god. This cake was a freaking nightmare. A messy, messy nightmare. For a few weeks now I've had this image in my head of a pristine white cake that looks like it's made of snow. I kept putting off making it because I couldn't think of the right flavour cake or the right toppings. I saw Mowie's stunning Snow Cake and nearly gave up the idea entirely because I knew I couldn't make anything near as perfect. I don't know why but a few days ago I suddenly decided I had to go ahead and make this cake. I wanted it to look like it was covered in snow on the outside by topping it with coconut, with little Snowman macarons on top and a vibrant red velvet cake with cream cheese icing hiding inside. I thought it would be the perfect dessert to bring along to Christmas lunch.

Things went pretty smoothly at first; I piped the macarons and was halfway through decorating them when I realised that I had forgotten to leave half the macaron shells undecorated for the back of each snowman. I really didn't want to have creepy double sided snowmen with faces on their fronts and backs. I managed to stop myself before I drew the faces on but they still have buttons on their backs. Then came my red velvet drama. I know I should have just gone with my trustly vanilla cake recipe and adapted it with cocoa and red food colouring, but instead I used an internet recipe and it just tasted really strange. Like it was made of playdoh. I have no idea why, it was probably because of something stupid I did. I don't think I'll be able to bring it to Christmas lunch :( So unfortunately I don't have a red velvet recipe to go with this post, but I'm sure most of you will have your own favourite red velvet cake recipe that you can use.

Then came the icing drama. I was totally impatient and didn't let my cakes cool for long enough before I started icing them. You'd think I'd have learnt my lesson on this issue by now. The icing started melting down the sides of the cake and it was a total mess. So that's why the cake isn't very straight on the sides, as A described it: 'The cake has hips'. I tried to fix it by patting the coconut on top of the icing and pushing it back up the sides of the cake, but it just made things worse. After the sprinkles mess I made with my purple ombre sprinkles cake you'd think I'd never decorate the sides of my cake with toppings again. But I did. And coconut went EVERYWHERE. At least coconut doesn't bounce as much as sprinkles do when they hit the ground. But it does stick to you. I was this scary coconut covered monster by the end of it.

Things didn't get much better the next day when I went to take photographs of it. I managed to drop that poor slice of cake twice, knocking off the poor snowman's nose. I had to perform emergency snowman surgery. And then I slipped and nearly fell into the damn cake. I'm not kidding. There was a lot of swearing. I was pretty much ready to give up on the whole thing, but look at how pretty it looks! I just had to share the idea with you guys.

My favourite part is definitely the snowman macarons. I filled them with the same cream cheese icing that I covered the whole cake in, and used orange Starburst chewy lollies to make their little noses. I know they've been done before (I think my favourite version that I've seen are from MiniCuisine), but they were just the perfect topper for this cake, along with the mountains of coconut to make it look like it was covered in snow. I really do love the bright contrast of the super red cake innards against the stark white exterior. It's definitely got a little bit of wow factor for when you cut into the cake. Of course feel free to make the macarons on their own, or you could just make the cake and icing. The cake would look just as cute topped with coconut macaroons or those white ferrero chocolates. And that's it from me for this year's Christmas baking, have an fabulous holidays everyone! Eat, drink and be merry :)

Red Velvet Snow Cake with Snowman Macarons
(makes 10-12 macarons)
2 x 8-inch round cakes, use your favourite red velvet recipe (mine was a bust unfortunately)
250g cream cheese, softened
250g unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp of lemon, or adjust to taste (you can also add the zest of one lemon if you wish)
6 cups (about 750g) icing sugar, sifted
About 125g dessicated coconut

For the macarons:
100g aged egg whites (you can use fresh eggs too, just make sure they are room temperature. I always use fresh these days, and zap it in the microwave on defrost for 10 seconds)
110g almond meal, at room temperature and well sifted
200g icing sugar
50g caster sugar
Optional: 1 tsp powdered egg whites (available from The Essential Ingredient), helps to stabilise egg whites but is not necessary
To decorate: black food colouring or edible ink pen, silver cachous and orange Starburst chews

Bake the red velvet cakes and cool completely. Prepare the macarons; Line two baking sheets with baking paper. Place icing sugar in food processor and pulse for a minute to remove any lumps. Stir in almond meal and pulse for about 30 seconds to combine. Place in a large mixing bowl and set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites and egg white powder in a medium mixing bowl until the egg white powder dissolves and it reaches soft peaks. With the mixer on high speed, gradually add sugar and beat until it reaches stiff peaks.

Add meringue to your dry mixture and mix, quickly at first to break down the bubbles in the egg white (you really want to beat all the large bubbles out of the mixture, be rough!), then mix carefully as the dry mixture becomes incorporated and it starts to become shiny again. Take care not to overmix, the mixture should flow like lava and a streak of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the mixture should disappear after about 30 seconds. Place in a piping bag and pipe snowman shapes (I piped small 2cm rounds next to 4cm rounds) on baking sheets. Tap baking sheets carefully and firmly on the benchtop a couple times to remove any large bubbles. If you wish, decorate with silver cachous for the snowman 'buttons'.

Leave to dry for at least half an hour to an hour, so that when you press the surface of one gently it does not break. This will help prevent any cracking and help the feet to form on the macs. Preheat your oven to 140-150°C (285-300°F), depending on your oven. Place on top of an overturned roasting tray or another baking sheet if your sheets are not professional grade, for better heat distribution. Bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on the size of your shells. Carefully test if the base of the shell is ready by gently lifting one and if it's still soft and sticking to the baking paper, then it needs to bake for a few minutes longer. Remove from the oven and cool on the tray for a few minutes, then gently remove from the sheet and place on a wire rack to cool completely. Decorate half the macarons with the black food colouring to draw on the faces and cut a small triangle of orange Starburst chews for the nose.

Prepare the cream cheese icing; place cream cheese and butter in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high until smooth and fluffy. Add lemon and icing sugar, one cup and a time, and beat until smooth. You may need to adjust the amount of icing sugar to obtain the right consistency, it should be spreadable but not runny. Spread over the top of one cake and then sandwich the other cake on top and crumb coat with more icing. Chill for about 15 mins to set the crumb coat slightly. While it is chilling, sandwich the macarons with some of the cream cheese icing and chill in the fridge in an airtight container. Cover the cake with the remaining cream cheese icing, smoothing with a spatula. Chill in the fridge for about half an hour. Place cake in a wide container/tray and carefully sprinkle coconut all over the top and sides of the cake to decorate. Top with macarons and chill in the fridge overnight. Serve at room temperature.

A Very Coconutty Christmas - Coconut & Citrus Snowman Cake and Coconut Jam Thumbprint Cookies

Christmas is here! It's just hours away from us in Sydney, and I can't believe how quickly it has crept up on me. I'm very pleased with the amount of Christmas baking I've managed to squeeze in this year, with the mini gingerbread houses, fruit mince slice, Christmas tree cupcakes and my gingerbread igloo. It feels weird to be finally at the end of my Christmas-themed baking, and it will be hard to snap out of decorating everything in red, white and green!

So, for my final Christmas baking post of the year, I'm sharing the two recipes that I baked up just in time for Christmas. I don't like doing things at the last minute, so of course the obvious choice for a dessert would be cakes and cookies. Citrus and coconut cakes, shaped like snow men thanks to a cute little cake tin I picked up with my Mum. The cake is super easy and is coated in the most luxurious salted buttercream, a genius idea for a buttercream that the most awesome Karen from Citrus and Candy was kind enough to share with me. She made this salted buttercream with a rich butter cake for the Sydney bloggers' Xmas party, and as soon as I tasted that sexy, sexy buttercream, I knew I had to try it for myself.

And for the cookies, a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa for coconut thumbprint cookies. I hadn't really watched her show much, but my Mum LOVES her and when I saw these cookies on her show I thought they were just perfect for Christmas day. They look like cute little jam centred snow balls, with a melt-in-your-mouth shortbread dough and lovely smelling toasted coconut. My mum practically crowed with delight when she heard I was making these cookies.

Citrus Coconut Butter Cake
(adapted from Lemon Coconut Cake from the Essential Baking Cookbook)
1 1/2 cups (185g) self raising flour
1/2 cup (45g) desiccated coconut
Zest of 2 lemons
Zest of 1 lime
1 cup caster sugar
125g butter, melted
2 large eggs
1 cup (250ml) milk

Citrus & Candy's Salted Buttercream
250g salted butter (I used Girgar)
400-500g icing sugar, sifted
table salt to taste

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Lightly grease a deep 20 cm round cake tin and line with baking paper(I split the batter in two and filled two greased and dusted with flour snow man shaped cake tins).

Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the coconut, zest, sugar, butter, eggs and milk. Mix well with a wooden spoon until smooth. Pour into the tin(s) and smooth the surface.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the centre of the cake. Leave the cake in the tin for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely

Beat butter until light and fluffy with an electric beater. Gradually add icing sugar, beating to combine until the icing reaches your desired texture (stiff enough not to run but smooth enough to spread easily). Add extra salt if needed and beat to combine, I added about 1/4 tsp extra.

To make the snow man cakes: spread icing over the cake evenly, smoothing with a spatula. Decorate with toasted coconut, sprinkles and candy.

For the decorations I used chocolate and strawberry sprinkles for the scarf, smarties for the buttons and an orange smartie for his nose :)

Sultanas for his mouth, choc chips for his eyes and I toasted some desiccated coconut under the grill for 5 minutes for his beanie, I then finished it off with a fluffy hem using vanilla pashmak (persian fairy floss). I loved how completely straightforward the baking and decorating for this cake was, it meant that I could do it with as little stress as possible, which was such a relief on a stinking hot and rushed day. The cake came out of the oven golden brown with a fluffy interior, with the rich aroma of coconut and citrus zest. I actually made two snowmen, and one of them cracked in half because I picked it up before it had cooled! Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a bit of buttercream though. The buttercream was to die for, thank you so much Karen!

Right, on to the thumbprint cookies. Though I think in Australia they'd probably be known more as jam drop cookies. With the coconut it made them seem like a hybrid of jam drop biscuits and coconut macaroons. The thing that makes these biscuits SO good is the obscene amount of butter in them. I'm not going to beat around the bush, there is nearly half a kilo of butter in one batch of these biscuits. But remember the recipes makes quite a lot of biscuits, and then do what I do and lock this information into the carefully guarded space in your brain which I like to call the butter vault, where I happily forget the amount of butter that I put into all the desserts I make.

But all that butter really does make a difference. These biscuits are amazing, they literally melt in your mouth. The combination of the fluffy, buttery shortbread with toasted coconut and jam is just the perfect thing to go with a warm Christmassy drink. I jazzed them up a little with some fancy jams, cherry and blueberry, as well as the usual apricot. I love my jam.

Jam & Coconut Thumbprint Cookies
(recipe by Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa Family Style)
455g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 large egg, beated with 1 tbsp of water for egg wash
200g shredded coconut
Jam of your choice, I used cherry, blueberry and apricot

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Cream butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until are just combined and then add the vanilla and beat to combine. Sift flour and salt in a separate bowl and then gradually add to the butter and sugar, with the mixer on low speed. Mix until the dough starts to come together. Dump mixture on a floured surface and roll together into a flat disk. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 mins.

Roll the dough into 1 1/4 inch balls (I made mine a tiny bit smaller, maybe around an inch), dip each ball into egg wash and then roll in coconut.

Place on a lined baking tray and press a light indentation into the top of each with your finger. Drop a quarter teaspoon of jam into each indentation.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the coconut turns golden brown. Cool and serve.

The two recipes on these post definitely highlight the reason why I love cakes and cookies so much, they are so devilishly rewarding for minimal effort. These biscuits are the perfect post-Christmas lunch nibble, and I hope that A's family will love them with their cups of tea. I just won't mention how much butter is in them...

This might not be my last post for the year, but just in case, I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Starting my blog this year has been a truly amazing, rewarding experience, and to every single person who even bothered to spend a second on this little blog, thank you so so much, you're the best. Bring on 2010!

xx Steph :)