Sweet little lamb cake

In our household, hubby is the baker, I'm the cook. But occasionally we join efforts and make something fantastic. Like a winning Christmas dessert. Or a communion cake for my nephew.

It is tradition in Belgium to have a cake (often an ice cream cake) in the shape of a lamb for a first communion. Don't ask me why, I'm not entirely au-fait with Christian customs. But, as my nephew's first communion was approaching, I'd promised my sister that hubby and I would make the cake for her.

After trawling the internet for inspiration, I came across a mould from Wiltons and some suggestions on how to decorate a lamb cake. So I ordered all the equipment and hubby and I did a trial run, about a week before the event. Our first attempt was surprisingly successful.

We picked a red velvet cake as the base but the red colourant clearly wasn't strong enough and once baked, it looked like a plain chocolate cake. A nice, moist, fluffy chocolate cake, mind you! We covered the lamb in butter cream then cut the face and ears out of sugar paste and covered the body in mini marshmallows cut in half (tedious job, I tell you!). I used an edible pen to draw the lamb's face.

We set off to Belgium with all our equipment but just as we were reaching our destination, we realised we'd forgotten to bring the mini marshmallows with us. Drama! especially as they're really not easy to come by in Belgium. After a restless night trying to come up with all sorts of solutions, we set off to a specialist baking shop and found some. The only problem was that they came in bags of mixed colours so on top of having to cut them all in half, we also had to colour sort three bags of mini marshmallows!

The cake alone probably wouldn't have fed all the guests so we set it in the middle of a field of lemon cupcakes which we decorated with green sugarpaste and sugar flowers. The result was really quite cute though I think our trial lamb looked somewhat better.

My nephew was super excited by his cake (and he's not even a sweet tooth!) and the guests really liked it. Here are a few pics which we took on a mobile on the day, so you'll have to excuse the poor quality of the images.

The thing about waffles...

When I was in Belgium over the weekend, I received a belated birthday gift, something I'd been longing for for ages: a waffle iron.

We Belgians love our waffles and we make many different varieties. As soon as I got home, I got cracking with a batch using the family recipe. When I was done, I proudly posted a picture on Facebook and was offended by the comments that came back. "What do you serve with it?" or "Send me some, I already have the ice cream" (sorry Jo and Lizzie!). My waffles are best eaten on their own. In fact most Belgian waffles are! Time for a little lesson.

What Brits and other non-Belgians usually qualify as Belgian waffles are in fact Liège waffles. They're thick and have caramelised lumps of sugar in them. They are best eaten warm. And despite your culinary customs, they are best eaten on their own! Ok, sometimes they are nice dipped in chocolate. But that's as far as we go. In Belgium, Liège waffles are street food, you find them on every corner and they're delicious on a cold winter's day.

The only waffle we Belgians serve with garnish is the Brussels waffle. It's a large, crispy and light waffle. It doesn't have much taste on its own but it is delicious with some fresh strawberries and chantilly cream and/or ice cream.

The waffles I've made are commonly know as Namur waffles. They are made from a cake like batter so they are sweet and tasty and again best eaten on their own. You can eat them warm as they come out of the waffle iron but they are usually stored in a tin and eaten cold as a tea-time snack. Making them brought back one of my best childhood memories. When my grandmother would make waffles, my sister and I would stand at the ready with a teaspoon and we'd sneak behind her back to try and eat as much of the batter as we could. Hubby is a new convert to the delights of waffle batter :-)

The next batch I'm planning to make will be Ardennes waffles. They're not as sweet as the Namur waffles and a whole lot stodgier because they are made with fresh yeast and left to rise before going in the waffle iron. I'm looking forward to it already!