I'm not giving up on Christmas yet...

Since our roommates were also away from Berlin for Christmas, we agreed to spare some presents for later and have Christmas volume 2 together. I love prolonging good things. We made a decent grown-up-style dinner, got a christmas movie, I played my awesome new fireplace-dvd on the tv (those things don't get old), we even drank Robby Bubble-"kids champagne" from flutes, pretending to be all proper people. (What's wrong with us?) Only the gifts were totally out of our age...toys, games, and totally irrational random stuff. but I'll tell you more of the presents in another post. We still had a good amount of packages! Doing Christmas twice rules!

 

This is how Rene's presents were addressed.

 

Rene was totally in love with Sam's brothers bowler hat in France... guess what he got from Sam?

   

For dinner we had a full menu with Sam's amazing French cuisine and some Finnish traditions from my side. I made a piggy cake for dessert! It was not 'the piggy cake', it was a version I made with the ingredients I could find, and I must say it became really ugly, but friggin delicious! This is what I was going for, the traditional Finnish "possukakku" (photo source here, recipe in the end):

 

But instead I used a lemon cake base, with sugar icing (instead of the traditional marzipan coating). It was quite alot of work carving all the small details, but everything went sort of well and it seemed like the piggy would turn out pretty. Until I started making the icing I finally remembered how much I hate icing, and regretted it immediately. 

Sculpting a piggy out of a 1 liter cake form:

   

Stuffing the pork. I cut it in half really carefully with a good knife, moisturized it with juice and spread some rasberry jam and whipped cream in the middle and on top.

   

Attaching the pig tail. It kind of looks like a pig tail from some angle, right? I used the icing to glue it.

   

Until this part it was big fun. With the icing you need to be so careful you don't make it too loose, too thick, too little... because it sticks everywhere, dries really fast, and ends up looking grainy. But whatta hell, it's delicious!

   

The poor bastard ended up looking like he had a bad skin infection. But he's peaceful and cute, no matter what! I made the eyes with icing mixed with red, green and blue food colouring, and squeezed it through a small hole in the corner of a plastic bag (see picture).

   

 There's the calm fellow sleeping in the fridge.

   

 And the proud creator!

   

And this is how the guys spent their time preparing for the event of the year. Spoiled brats. *Feministic mumbling*

   

Starters: Smoked salmon, caviar, creme fraiche, red onions with potatoes and carrots. I cooked the veggies and fried them in butter after.

 

Main course. Oh my god in heaven. Sam made amazing steaks, blue cheese sauce, champignons and a gratin of zucchini and aubergines. Do I have to tell you how good it was. I'm getting hungry just thinking back on it.

   

And that was enough of the 'acting our age'. Time to open the prezzies. Rene's wearing the bowler, in case you didn't guess from the package earlier.. :)

   

Time to watch how the Grinch stole Christmas, and eat the piggy!

 

It was a shame to eat that sad little fella. But it was good. The lemon cake was a nice fresh base.

   

 I tried to colour the dough pink too. I should probably stay away from food additives and conservatives for a month or so, that's how much unhealthy stuff I put into the cake.

   

There's the tail. :)

   

This is how a happy livingroom looks like. Messy as hell, the remains of an awesome dinner on the table, people playing with their toys by the (fake) fire place... yeah, that's life.

   

Cat got the best out of the wrapping papers.

   

My version of the Possukakku (piggy cake): 

Base 

cake base (sponge cake or which ever fluffy cake you prefer) 

I used a lemon cake base, which is like a "shake n' bake" mix, but you add butter, eggs and milk yourself. It's easier than making it all from the scratch, but it's way better when you know it has real butter and some fresh ingredients. 

Filling 

4 tbsp juice for moisture 

4 tbsp rasberry jam 

1 dl whipped cream 

1 tbsp sugar (for cream) 

1 tsp vanilla sugar (for cream) 

Topping 

about 2 dl icing (powder sugar and a tiny bit of warm water) - but if you prefer to make the pig a bit prettier than mine, maybe you should try making the coat from marzipan. 

a few drops of food colouring (pink & black) 

Bake the cake as in the package/your own recipe. Follow the decoration instructions as above.

Ho ho ho

Christmas in Finland was incredibly snowy, like from a story book. We got to decorate another tree at my dad's house in Vääksy and frolic around in the snow. I haven't written much lately, mostly 'cos it's taken me 3 days to recover from the trip and settle back home in Berlin. The food was so delicious and plenty, that I'm just rolling around the house like a ball. I could just wrap myself in Finnish christmas food and eat myself out, like Ricky Bobby would say. 

  

Check out the ice crystals in the window!

 

 The river was mostly frozen and so were we (It was -15 degrees Celsius).

 

 Our Mexican was excited.

 

  

Rene is so easy to make happy. Here hugging a russian beer can he got as a present from my dad.

These are a little something I got for my dad n' Eija: three candle shades for wine glasses from pushShop.

 

 Some scenes from the frozen lake Päijänne by our summer house and steam boat.

 

One night in Helsinki, in We Got Beef.

 

Jallu-shots. None for me, thanks.

 

Why do people drink that shit? It tastes so bad it hurts.

Laundry: Rene: shirt - Marimekko, Me: shirt - vintage

On Christmas night there were really no cabs, so we walked home in the effin cold weather. My god, it was inhumanely windy and icy. Why our ancestors originally decided to dwell in a climate like this is beyond me...

 

...Maybe that's why Finns drink. It numbs the cold. We got home, and my thighs were bright red until the next day, and my nose was running so bad it hurt. 

Piritta and Rene making angels:

 

The last days we've mostly been playing with our new gifts, but more of that later... We still have a few more to open, since we decided to save some for when we're all home with the roommates. Tomorrow we'll make a second christmas with a huge French-style dinner and a Finnish piggy-cake, and open up the last presents. Can't wait!