Cake twenty-eight

Lilac Chic

I share my passion for baking with my daughters and when it’s time to make a birthday cake for one of us we don’t miss out on the chance to make something special which for us means a three or four tier cake. This doesn’t imply that the rest of the family is happy about it! In fact they’re perfectly aware of the consequences of the three of us working together for a few days and the chance or maybe the certainty that there won’t be anything but cake ingredients in the kitchen until the cake’s ready! We, especially me I must say, kind of forget there’s an outer world and sound like tuned in to a one music station, so, in a way, I do understand their point of view... 

First we decide on decoration  and then choose the cake, usually a different type of cake for each tier. It’s not easy to find something we all like, I do have my favourite cake which I always propose.. I must admit.... but very often when it’s not my birthday cake I have to give in... and accept their ideas. The atmosphere gets tense from time to time especially when it comes to assembling and decorating the cake! 

This cake here's the one for my younger daughter’s 18th birthday and it was only me and her to make it since my older daughter had no time to help. It was a big job but in the end we made it and it was good! 

Song: Birthday

It doesn't matter whose birthday it is, let's celebrate together!

see recipe:

http://time-for-cake-making.blogspot.it/2013/08/cake-twenty-eight-lilac-chic.html

Cake twenty-seven alias Bread one

Multigrain Dove

If you’re a cake-baking fan I’m sure you’ll also like baking bread. There’s not the same variety of course but there are more types of bread than you expect: if you simply consider the different breads you have in your country you’ll realize how amazing it s that just mixing some flour and some water you can have some breads which look and taste differently. Besides bread dough can be easily given any shape you like and some bread is no doubt a work of art or some type of sculpture.. I’m not a ‘bread’ artist but I love making bread on special occasions and using bread dough for decoration. I love the smell of freshly baked bread in my kitchen, it really makes me feel positive. Among all shapes I’m fond of pleated bread.. don't know the reason why, maybe it's something which goes back to my childhood and my short curly hair....

Song: Don't pass me by

Follow the rhythm.. I'm sure it'll cheer you up! 

see recipe:
http://time-for-cake-making.blogspot.it/2013/07/cake-twenty-seven-alias-bread-one.html

Cake twenty-six

Sicilian Cassata

I’d call it the Queen of Cakes, regal and sumptuous in the decoration, a feast of colours and flavours! The perfect portrait of the island. I'm of Sicilian origins but don't often go back to Sicily as it's quite far away from whee I live. Anyway I love it! Everybody loves it, you can't help it! What I love most is the colour of the sea, a deep blue which is in sharp contrast with the bright yellow of the sun, the white of the houses and the intense colours of the flowers. Every time I leave the island, I close my eyes and try to store this magical symphony of colours hoping it'll help me to brighten up my Winter's gray routine. 

Once I was on a short holiday on the Adriatic Sea and my kids were all very young. I usually took them to Sicily but that time we were there with other friends. We got the beach and all the kids started to play, after some time my son came to me saying: "Mum, when are we going to the seaside?" I said we were in the right place and he went on "No, Mum I mean the blue sea, this can't be the sea it's brown". So I realized he was another unaware victim of the magic of the blue sea, just exactly like me. The spell was cast again and I can even give a name and a place to this spell: it's the deep blue of the water near Scopello or near the Tonnara del Secco in San Vito Lo Capo, two places which are now a must-see but were solitary paradises when I was a child. As you understand it’s a cake which is particularly dear to me, as it belongs to my family tradition. It's  always been on our table on special occasions: it was my aunt Lucia who made it or my mum’s brother, Stefano, who sent us one directly from the best pastry shop in Alcamo.

Then when I was old enough to make cakes I made it myself. It wasn’t easy to get to the same high standard both for quality and look, but after some time I made it! Every time it's a new experience when you get to the decoration, a different look but always rich and colourful: green for the marzipan, white for the icing and red and orange for the candied fruits.

Song: All together now!

Let the colours brighten up your day!

see recipe:
http://time-for-cake-making.blogspot.it/2013/07/cake-twenty-six-sicilian-cassata.html

Cake twenty-five

Chocolate Lollipops 

My youngest daughter was still a toddler and I was in England with my students on an exchange programme. I was in a small town not far from Coventry and Birmingham and I remember I was trying to find some little present to take back home. It was the first time I had left my children at home and was abroad without them. I happened to pass by a chocolate shop and saw some chocolate lollipops in the shape of a teddy bear: the right gift for my little baby!  It was so cute! She was already a chocoholic although so young.... and I bought one for her...The problem of a chocolate lollipop is that it’s so nice to look at that you feel sorry to eat it.... It was the same for her... 

After ten years or more I was again in England with my school students, and this time I was in Devon in Plymouth. It was a couple of weeks before Easter and all the shops were full of chocolate delicacies. It was in a shop full of baking equipment that I saw a lollipop mould and it was mine! 

Song: Good Night

Close your eyes and follow me into a chocolate dream world!

Cake twenty-four

Bunnies, Bunnies, Bunnies...

Bunnies aren’t part of my Easter traditions. I only had eggs when I was a kid, bigger or smaller eggs but only eggs. I still have quite a distinct memory of a giant-like chocolate egg which was more or less my size; I remember it was standing in a shopwindow of a bar in the main street and it was destined to the lucky winner of a lottery. It was of a shining red with a big ribbon and some flowers on top. 

Eggs were in all shopwindows, but no bunnies. Bunnies are not wild animals here, we don’t see them run happily in parks and gardens like in England and are only recently become home pets. They are quite popular anyway, but they are bred like chickens and eaten as a delicacy. 

I first saw a chocolate bunny, the Lindt bunny when I was a teenager and it looked rather exotic to my eyes: it could never substitute the Easter Egg on our Easter tables though. Some years ago while wondering in the street of a German town I saw a bunny mould: I bought it and I’ve had my Easter bunny since then. I’ve tried to make it in chocolate but with no good results until I made it my way: the Cake and the Rice Krispies Bunny.

Song: Octopus's Garden
What about walking in a Bunny's Garden?

see recipe:
http://time-for-cake-making.blogspot.it/2013/05/cake-twenty-four-bunnies-bunnies-bunnies.html

Cake twenty-three

Easter Eggs 

I first made a chocolate egg ten years ago or more. It all started when I found an Easter chocolate mould in a shop it was love at first sight! But it’s been kind of an unrequited love for years, I must say, until I made my first egg which was acceptable to look at. It was more like a challenge between me and the chocolate egg than a real love... I had to overcome a lot of difficulties, I didn’t know how to join the two parts without making holes in the junction for instance. The thing is that you make chocolate eggs only once a year, so you don’t have many chances to try... But in a way I was lucky: I have four children which means at least four eggs plus one or two more for their friends. After a few attempts which could hardly be called chocolate eggs I had the idea to add some Rice Krispies to the melted chocolate and there it stood, as if my magic, my first chocolate egg without holes and bumps! 

song: I'm fixing a hole
It really doesn't matter if you're wrong, stick to your idea and carry on...

see recipe:

http://time-for-cake-making.blogspot.it/2013/04/cake-twenty-three-easter-eggs.html

Easter baking

Easter’s another of my favourite periods of time for baking. Every year I complain I never have enough time to give form to my ideas: I wish I could forget the rest of the world and dedicate myself only to it! I’d love to  shut myself in the kitchen and ignore the natural rhythm of the day, but of course I can’t.... There are days, anyway, when I lose track of time and space and really put my family’s patience to the test; it goes without saying the good smell of chocolate and cakes play their role and partly make up for all the things I leave behind...

What I like to make is what’s not strictly necessary for the Easter lunch but it’s what, in my opinion, makes it special.  

It’s a golden time for baking: from chocolate bunnies to small and big eggs, from basket or flower shaped cakes to the traditional Sicilian Cassata, from cheese Panettone to dove shaped bread and why not a Spring House.

Song: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

We never feel lonely when sharing Easter specialties...