Fastelavn cakes...mmmmmm

You will need:

250 grams butter (150 for the first bit and 100 for the second phase)

2 dl milk
50 gram yeast
1 pinch salt
½ teaspoon cardamom spice
2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
roughly 359-400 grams flour with lots of gluten

custard and whipped cream (enough to fill about 11 cakes)

Icing sugar

WARNING: They take 45 minutes to rise the first time + 30 mins to rise the second time. Start well before bedtime!

Ready???

Melt the 159 g butter in the milk on low. Then let it cool to luke warm before ...

Tipping it in a bowl big enough for the other ingredients, then
adding the yeast, cardamom, salt and ... 

...sugar. (Heaped. Ours were not sweet enough).

Beat and add the eggs. (That was what our yeast looked
 like before we added it).

Don't use too much flour or the dough wll
be too dry..

Add it a bit at a time until the dough is still very sticky.

This was where we realised we had
made a mistake and put in only
100 g of butterand added the
other 100 g (not a good idea).
Now LET IT RISE for 45 minutes until
it doubles in size with aCLEAN tea towel
on top to stop it crawling out of the bowl.

Flour the work surface and your hands...

Blob the dough onto the surface...

Roll it out 30 cm x 50 cm, spread the soft 100 g of butter you have left on
half the rectangle and flap one side over the other and fold it up small.
Don't worry - the small black dots are the cardamom not a
reflection on your cleaning skills.

Roll it out thin and... 

...cut it into about ten squares.

We seemed to have oodles of dough and made about 13 cakes.

Then we realised the recipe were using had missed out the
 ingredients for  homemade custard...and had forgotten to
mention cream. So I dug out some Bird's custard powder
and milk and we heated the milk and whisked in the custard powder.

Splot some custard in the middle of each square.

Pull the four corners into the middle, pinch the
seams tightly
shut and flop the cakes upside dow

Like this...

Here are some of them. Then let them rise for
half an hour.

Pop them in the oven for 16 minutes or so at 200 degrees and they'll look like this.

Fill some custard mixed with whipped cream (half cream, half custard) in
a piping bag or plastic bag with a hole cut in the corner .

And fill each cake.

Ha ha!
DON'T: This was when we discovered we din't have any icing sugar at all though we were sure we had. We spent five minutes rooting through cupboards, another five minutes wondering whether to ask the neighbours if they have any, then found some 'fondant' in a tub left over from a wedding cake! We tried to water it down. We threw away the disgusting slimy gunk that produced and rolled out some more fondant thinly and glued it onto the cakes with the milk and cream mixture we tried and failed to whip because we hadn't been wearned we would need cream.

DO: As our recipe warns you that you will need both custard, cream and icing sugar, you can add a drop or two of water at a time to some icing sugar and make your cakes look MUCH better. And you can add a touch of food colouring to cheer them up even more.

We just closed our eyes and ate ours. MMmmmmmmmmmmmm.