Heidi Parker and Danai Gabre's wedding

Cakes delivered to the wedding venue on a morning of rain and thunder.  Went back to the church a couple of hours before the ceremony, and I donned my bakers hat, blue disposable catering gloves and my apron.  I didn't check that my mother had managed to take a photo with my camera...so no photo of this funny garb available.

The purple cupcakes towered high and spread around the stand.  Even in the gloom the purple shows up well, but the topping didn't sparkle as much as I hoped.They were at the back of the church, with coffee and other drinks being provided for the end of the service while the formal photos were being taken.

The top cake was moved to the dining area to be the cutting cake late in the evening, rather than perch it on top and move it later.

The groom looked calm and elegant, waiting for the bride.  As she approached the door, seen through the glass windows, I, as the true psychologist I am, turned to watch the groom catching his first sight of her and he looked close to tears, which, manfully, were controlled.  Heidi always looks lovely, but in her simple gown and off the face veiling trimmed with diamante she looked stunning.  Three jolly flower girls and three elegant bridesmaids - it would be hard to imagine a prettier sight.

The service was conducted by the groom's father, seen here with Heidi and Danai as they turn to be greeted as a married couple.

Of course I wasn't the only one that made use of this photo opportunity.

I kept a close eye out to see if the cakes were considered ok.  I once got told of a cupcake tower for a wedding where all over the place were pretty cupcakes with just a bite out of them.  No sign of any of that at all, I am please to say, and I finally tried one myself and thought they were delicious. I didn't get many good shots of people munching as the light levels were low and my camera is large and therefore difficult to get surreptitious photos with.  I did like this one of the stack being built.

You can also see that my mother wasn't completely fed up of chocolate cake after spending the previous three days with me in cake mode.

Even with cupcakes and a mulit-cultural dressing up booth the gap between wedding and meal feels very long for some.

There were some formal photos taken in a break in the rain near the church, and then more in a garden elsewhere.

The grass was wet and soggy and high heels were a menace.  Plenty of shots of bridesmaids barefooted, skirts hoisted.

I got included in one shot - so asked for my camera to be used.  About to include the one where I was looking the right direction but it has vanished completely, so here I am, tacked onto the nd of the row.  I was paying attention. My purple flower was excellent and went with the cupcakes beautifully, but hats are clearly not normal garb at this sort of scanidnavian/mulitcultural event.

 I have some charming movie of a bubble and confetti welcome back from this which I will extract some still photos later.

I took my own meal, even though the food was almost all gluten free and the two items that weren'te were clearly designated.  This was suitable for Heidi, and also another aunt of hers, her mother's sister, who says she even shares a wheat bread toaster.  I could tell I was getting a bit contaminated even with being scrupulous, and took four glutenzymes over the course of the event to keep the discomfort down. I left about nine, with lots more acting, singing, dancing etc to go. Had a leg cramp in the night but otherwise ok.

Back home, greeted by the sight of an empty dresser.

cakes and calm

My poor mother has been whisked off by my brother for a couple of hours.  I told her she would have to just keep out of my way, but I don't think she imagined being banned from the kitchen for so many hours.  When I am wearing my baking hat the kitchen is off limits - at one point I had a five star rating for my small baking business from the Heart of England Fine Food association, and it is hard to be any more slip shod than necessary working in a stranger's domestic kitchen.  She has been sitting in the living room with CNN on at full blast - the tv sound is erratic and vanishes for hours at a time, so she decided simply leaving it on once it worked would be best.  It is boring though, and she says she couldn't sit and watch tv all day.

Yesterday my brother and his family came for a visit, and they were force-fed chocolate cake and strawberries.  Wasn't sure if it was a good idea to get them to try the test cake - what if they had hated it?  Too polite so say I expect, but anyways, eaten and so fore warned.

My make-shift cooling racks stood up to the whole process.  They would have been less good for a any other form of cake, but they worked fine for the cupcakes.

All cakes made and stored in my dust/fly-free dresser- covered by a sheet.  The air here feels lovely and clean, and there are hardly any insects outside in the garden, but I prefer to be sure.

now you see it

now you don't

Started the day with icing the cutting cake.  I brought roll-out icing for the top to make it look a bit more formal, and needed a layer of buttercream to glue it in place.  There is a food mixer, and I am using the bowl all the time, as being metal I can be sure I have washed it adequately.  I won't use the mixer though as there is usually food debris in the stand and I don't want to risk an errant blob of wheat.  Fortunately I brought a rather fierce wrist brace, so with that and a disposable catering glove managed to do the whipping of the butter and icing sugar required.  This is the only bit of the whole task that is physically hard work.

Lilac icing on top, a pre-rolled icing ribbon around the edge, and some bits of glitter.  Upturned saucepan as a turntable. Not as neat as I would have liked, but there are lots of butterflies to attach tomorrow.  Just hope the cake is big enough to hold the spray.

Next job...make a big batch of my chocolate fudge icing and decorate the cupcakes.  I will need to add the sparkly sprinkles as I ice the cakes as it sets with a firm top and the decorations would just roll off.


My mother said she was worried she would be hungry living a gf life for five days, especially since we were arriving in strange house with our suitcases. She may well be feeling despair at the multitude of choices she has each mealtime, but she is not feeling hungry.  The local supermarket, about a mile away, has an excellent range of fruit and vegetables and biscuits, pasta etc that are gf.  Need to keep an eye out as lots of the stuff has wheat starch in, so not suitable for me or my brother and nieces - saw a lovely looking batch of crispbread and was about to buy it before I read the label.  I've been enjoying lemon wafers and cinnamon cookies, all being eaten in the interests of research. I have been unable to buy things like salad dressing as the ingredient lists are too difficult for me to decipher, but that is not too hard to bear.  Good olive oil, lemon, basil and dill growing in little pots...dill in the supermarket!  In England it is a very difficult herb to find.

May not want to go home, seems a shame not to do as the Swedes normally do, which is to live in a log cabin next to a lake for the summer.

Day 2 - enjoying breakfast and laying down the rules

A good night's sleep - aided by my hanging counterpanes over curtain rails and the bit of exercise kit in the doorway.  There is a lot of light and it is there most of the night.  I am sleeping upstairs in the office, which also has the boy's (grown-up) toys - the pull up bar in the doorway, the electric guitar and keyboard, and a wonderful immense and height adjustable desk - perhaps one of the owners works from home.

Started the day well- spotted a food mixer in another cupboard, and it has a stainless steel bowl.  Challenge to figure out how to lift the mechanism to release the bowl, but got there in the end. It is quite small, but it will do as a clean mixing bowl from now on.  Made pancakes, struggled a bit with the very slow stove, but served with a fruit medley of watermelon, strawberry and blueberries, they were lovely.

I had bought a jar of red jam in my dash around the supermarket yesterday.  Didn't know what it was, so looked it up today.  The word 'Hallon' just didn't ring any bells - turns out it is raspberry.  The wonders of having wifi and the online translators.  'Rabarber' seemed likely to be rhubarb, and I could indeed see pieces of rhubarb in the jam.  So, rhubarb and raspberry - a bit odd as a combination as I think of rhubarb as a very early season crop and raspberries as one of the later summer berries, so unlikely to have a glut at the same time.  It tastes delicious, but not likely to become a home-made essential.

We have been trying to figure out how to say 'thank you very much'. The groom's grandfather tried teaching it to me yesterday in the car, but it seemed a long collection of clackety sounds and I just couldn't get it.  Looking at the spelling on the computer this morning hasn't helped.  'Tak' may be casual and informal, but that will no doubt be better than nothing at all.  I found myself falling back on french in the supermarket when I wanted to get by people - how daft is that! My extremely minimal southern European languages aren't going to be much help here.  I tried talking to the builders who are renovating this house (presumably they are doing something else this week while we are here) as I wanted to find out why my mother's bedside lights didn't work.  They were German, spoke no English, couldn't understand the perfectly adequate french sentence I came up with, couldn't get the miming...not their problem I suppose.  Gave up.  Enough light from elsewhere in the house and no door anyways.

Still no sign of any cooling racks.

My cupcake trays will only fit in the oven one at a time.  Even though the oven is very wide it is about 5mm too narrow to take two side by side.  It is too short to take them one above the other. There is only one grid shelf but I found two large solid oven shelves in the drawer under the stove.  Took a bit of opening as you have to lift and tug at the same time, but I could use these to slide the cupcake trays onto, and keep one at the top to stop stray old food falling -I couldn't clean the roof of the oven because of the elements and there are loose particles there.  If I did that I could use the oven grid as the cooling rack.

Continuing well; took two glutenzymes to cope with all the food being eaten in the airport and the plane, and one in the evening here, but certainly manageable levels.

And the ground rules?   Well, I don't want my mother to do anything unless I ask her to.  She can have a holiday.  I want to do all the washing up, getting meals, cleaning.  I feel better that way.  Fortunately she says she is happy not to have to do anything unless asked to, so that is fine.

The first Swedish gf chocolate cake - testing the oven

I've scrubbed the oven, after figuring out how to release the child lock, and found all the ingredients and utensils I brought.  Mixed a single egg's worth of the cake mix and cooked it in the small round cake tin that will be used to make the cutting cake.

I had set the oven to 175 C and kept being puzzled by the way it didn't feel very warm when I opened the door.  Didn't think to bring an oven thermometer. Half way through cooking the cake I realised that I have used a fan oven for more than two decades and so I am used to the gust of warm air that is released everytime I open the door.

25 minutes set on my phone, as there doesn't appear to be a timer.  Not having the fan seems to mean the smell of the cake isn't as obvious.  I would normally expect to be able to tell how cooked the cake is from the smell even without opening the oven.

While this was cooking I got on with washing up (can't find the detergent for the dish washer) and continuing my hunt for the cooling racks.  There must be some as there are lots of baking tins.  Shall I disturb the owner on her holiday?  Seems a bit minor.  I turnout this little cake on a daisy shaped trivet, not ideal, but will do for this cake.

Next problem will be testing it.  I washed the mixing bowls and used my own sieve, spoons and measuring jug.  However, all the mixing bowls are plastic, so washing them won't necessarily remove all the gluten.  Normally someone going gluten free would be advised to change all wooden spoons and plastic tubs, chopping boards and all other things with these type of surfaces. I might just cut the cake to see how it looks, and rely on others to say if it tastes ok - though no one else is as fierce a critic as I am.

I've used a large number of tea towels and scrubbing cloths since I arrived four or five hours ago.  I washed them and hung them on the line outside.  Unfortunately most of the clothes pegs fall apart when I try to use them....I wonder if there is a shop within walking distance that sells cooling racks, metal or glass mixing bowls, dishwasher detergent and clothes pegs - oh, and hand cream, even with rubber gloves on my hands are already showing signs of all the manual labour.  Next job, learn what the Swedish words to avoid on ingredients lists are!

Sweden - the arrival

There is much to recommend travelling with someone who needs the assistance of a wheelchair at airports.  You get whisked past whatever queues there are as porters cant afford to hang around in queues when they are needed again for the next person.  The system at both Heathrow and Landvetter was efficient and courteous, and at the arrival airport we had the wheelchair pushed all the way to the car.  The groom's grandparents picked up up and were waiting with a big sign at the arrivals point even though we had a tail wind and arrived nearly half an hour early.  A quick stop to get some groceries so that we would not have to go trudging around, got to the house and settled in.  The flat is lovely, spacious, with a good kitchen, much better, of course than mine at home as it is proper kitchen (not a small line of worktops and equipment squeezed along the edge of the living room).  The oven is large - I need to to do a sample batch of the cupcakes to test how it works.

The groom's mother had done my bulk shopping for me.  I was a bit surprised to find what felt like a bag of flour in with the eggs, oil, butter and sugar..maybe she thought I just forgot to request some....but of course I have no idea what the words mean.  I have connected to the wifi so will attempt to figure this out later, but for the moment the rogue package has been put into the flt owners pantry.

I have started washing the kitchen.  It is clean, but clean for people who eat bread and those who can't mean two different things.  I probably shouldn't have climbed on a stool to clean the extractor fan chimney as I can't reach to the top and the swooping angle of my cleaning cloth is quite visible about ten cm from the ceiling.

The strawberries are the best I have tasted.  Bought in a punnet from an ordinary supermarket they taste as if you were standing in a field in the sun and had just picked one - and then add extra flavour even if you have chosen a good variety.  Forget Elsanta, these were amazing.   Lunching on strawberries seems good enough for me, but I do need to do proper meals too.  My mother has agreed to be gf while here so that I am safe; in return it seems reasonable to make something moderately tasty and at normal times of the day - though what normal is when we have been up since three this morning I am not sure.

I unpacked my large red suitcase - which, contrary to the many merry comments on the trouble I would get from customs, caused no trouble at all.  One of the cupcake stand layers has a crack but it shouldn't compromise its operation this weekend.  Unfortunately most of the stuff has to go home with me again - I brought four cupcake tins, a rolling pin for icing...I didn't bring any cooling racks so will have to hunt for some of those.  I figured it must be possible to buy some cheap ones here if necessary; if my host hasn't any (she said to use anything in the kitchen) then I can leave them here for her. There is a fridge magnet which states "cooking by appointment only" so there may not be stuff I would expect to find in a baker's kitchen.

It is very hot here - about 30C, and there is a garden, so I think a little sitting outside with a book is probably the next step.  If it rains usually I might as well enjoy the sun for a bit.  Next challenge is to figure out how to make the shower work, twisting everything obvious hasn't produced any water...

the remarkable tale of the swedish gf wedding cupcake tower

Annie Dean's lovely fabric flower

A week to go before I catch my plane to Sweden.  Time to mill, mix and bag the flour I will need.  My niece's future mother-in-law has messaged me on Facebook to say she will buy ingredients I need, so that is a relief.  I have no idea where shops will be in relation to the flat I have rented, and I won't have a car.

A sudden change of plans, and now my mother is travelling with me.  Her mobility hasn't been that good over the last few years, so I am pleased she feels able to come on this trip.  It will be good for her to be able to attend her grand-daughter's wedding, especially since my niece has spent much of her life living in Mongolia and Thailand so we haven't seen much of her.

I ordered urid lentils, no husks but otherwise whole, and ground these.  My lovely little Swiss flour mill gets warm after about a kilo of grinding so I like to take things slowly.  Tapioca - a last minute bit of internet shopping as I realised I hadn't enough in my store cupboard; I am so pleased that internet shopping is so swift and reliable. Fine cornmeal.  Mixed in these proportions 40% urid, 40% tapioca and 20% cornmeal.  This makes a very reliable and versatile flour.

urid, tapioca and cornmeal

I bagged the flour in the small heat-sealable cellophane bags I used to use when I ran a small bakery business.  Double sealed and then stored inside another food bag, I am hoping I get to the other end without all the flour spread around the suitcase.

Into the suitcase has gone a long list of things.  Iv'e got a list on my magic whiteboard paper on the wall where I can mark off when things are packed, posted or arrived. I have no idea what will be available, and for proper gf cooking one should really use baking tins, wooden spoons etc that have not been used with wheat flour. I used to have a separate oven when I still baked sourdough wheat bread for my husband, and labelled oven gloves, spoons, bowls etc.

The six tier cupcake stand is a bit awkward to pack.  I have taken it out of the box I store it in as that won't fit in the suitcase.  I hope it doesn't crack on the way, but I have packed around it with bubble wrap.  The flour bags are in the crevices and hopefully this combination will give a stable packing structure that means everything will arrive safely, I have also packed a variety of silver, white and purple cake decorations, a small icing rolling pin, cupcake trays, shiny purple foil cupcake cases, aprons, gloves, a baking hat (who wants hair in their cake), a measuring jug...it is certainly a lot easier to bake at home.

The suitcase is almost too heavy for me to lift, not helped by my having a mildly sprained wrist to go with my still not recovered severe ankle sprain from last month.

Got my kroner from the Co-op travel agency yesterday and my banking card wouldn't work, tried it in the ATM at the bank and it wouldn't work...bank cashier says not to worry.  Twice in France our bank cards refused to operate, we presumed because all the lines between France and the UK would busy.  I don't want to get stuck on this trip with a cake to make, a mother to look after, and planes, buses, taxis to catch.

At least with my mother coming too I can use some of her luggage space.  I have weight spare but economy seats only allow one piece of checked baggage.  So far the case is full and I haven't packed any clothes or toiletries, my laptop, my camera...all the usual things one would want to take to a wedding and a trip abroad. I've given up on the hat, and a friend of mine has made a purple silk flower for me to wear so I can look a bit festive and match the cupcakes.  It packs very small.

I was surprised to find that no-one makes collapsible posh hats.  People used to wear collapsible top hats so that they could fit in their luggage. I fancied a spiral in black sinemay (not sure how to spell that - the fine mesh usually used for hats) that would press down to a flat disc and then bounce up into an energetic spiral when you released it from its box.  It doesn't really matter what I wear anyways, but as a hat lover I normally grab opportunities to wear large hats when I can.

Just to add to the fun it continues to pour with rain and my wonderful new induction hob has stopped working.  The engineer that came this morning says it has been installed incorrectly (wrong cable, wrong air gaps) so he can't fix it.  Given that our balcony door stopped locking months ago and the chap coming to fix it is only arriving tomorrow, and the network cables haven't worked since they were installed and on Friday we are paying a seperate contractor to look at them as the house builder hasn't resolved the issue for six months...who knows how long I will be without a stove.

Another gf wedding cake - a chocolate cupcake tower in Sweden

Ages ago I said to my sister-in-law that I would make her daughters' wedding cakes if they wanted.  Well, that remark was remembered, and as a result I am flying to Sweden in July to make a purple and silver chocolate cupcake tower for my niece, who has coeliac disease and also wheat intolerant.  I suppose I should have realised that this wouldn't be an English affair, as at the time the family lived in Mongolia.

It sounded simple.  I have never been to Sweden but often wanted to take a trip around Scandinavia.  First choice would be to have my husband drive the campervan there for the wedding so that I could stay safely, bake the cakes, have an adventure around the wedding.  Unfortunately, though retired,  he is working and can't take the month off that I would like.  So, could I drive the van myself?  No, not on a trip of that length.  There used to be a ferry to Sweden - it still shows up on a google search, but it no longer runs.  A ferry to Denmark, drive, ferry, drive, or via the Eurotunnel and a lot of driving.  I didn't manage to get used to driving the van in the UK last November as planned due to the house suddenly getting a buyer, and only drove the Smart car in France, so don't think a three to four thousand mile trip on the 'wrong' side of the road makes sense as a first solo journey.

Rent a flat in the town and fly there.  That made sense.  I found a cheap flat a few minutes walk from the station on the internet, but after 'booking' it got a note saying it wasn't available.  All other self catering options were wooden cabins were thirty km away from the town - great for a boating/sauna holiday but not so good for getting cakes make and delivered. I looked into hiring a cabin at the Boras campsite, but they have very little catering equipment and are surprisingly expensive.  Renting a campervan on arrival at the airport would also cost a lot and the van would be likely to have an invisible layer of gluten on all surfaces.

One of the hotels in the town said they took special efforts to meet extra needs and even mentioned gluten.  I booked with them even though they were the most expensive hotel in town.  If I get glutened I can't do anything, so being cautious makes sense.  In the meantime offers of the church ovens and the future mother-in-law's means that the baking can happen.

I almost booked the whole thing on the internet, but then thought that maybe, as I wanted something a bit unusual, I should try a travel agent.  The Co-op in Worcester couldn't even find Sweden in their system.  However, I did eventually get a flight with better timings than the one I had found on the internet - arriving at midday in a strange place is much better that last thing at night when you still have to travel 30km.  I booked the hotel separately - more expensive, but at least it is done.

The travel agent rang the airline to check that it would be ok for me to take flour and baking kit in my luggage.  It hadn't occurred to me to check, so that was a useful thing to have done.  I have to get all the baking kit in my 23kg of luggage allowance.  I need to take all the fancy stuff like cupcake cases, sparkles and other decorations, I would prefer to take the baking trays as baking gf really needs properly clean tins which have not been used for wheat flour.  They, however, are heavy, especially if you take enough to allow 150 cupcakes to be make without it being a whole day activity.  I also want to take my giant tiered cake-stand.  It is plastic and folds down, but even so it is quite large and heavy.

And the flour?  Well, Shipton Mill still haven't brought out the flour mix so I will need to grind, mix and package the flour here before I go.  I have been experimenting with my usual chocolate cake recipe, and making it premixed - just add eggs, oil and water, stir, put in cases and bake.  I tried out a batch on my embroidery chums.  They were complementary on the cakes, but the three that took a batch of the mix to bake for themselves haven't reported back yet.  I wanted feedback on how robust the mix was with different ovens as I have no idea what kind of ovens I will end up using.  If the cake is easy to make and the instructions clear it gives another level of safety if I do get sick - then pretty well anyone will be able to make the cakes even with very little supervision.

As to what I shall wear?  I think I will take my baking clothes, but don't reckon there will be room for a posh frock.  As long as the cake looks great I suppose I only have to look clean and tidy - must remember not to go to the ceremony with chocolate batter and icing all over myself.