Yummiest Chocolate Cake Ever!

For my hubby's birthday last week, I baked this chocolate cake, which as per him and my kiddo, is the best chocolate cake I have ever baked. And I I totally agree with him. This is going to be my go-to recipe for a dense chocolate cake.

The recipe for this cake is from one of my favorite cake blogs Call me cupcake. The ingredients at her blog are in dl(decilitre). 1 dl = 0.42 cup. Below is the approximate conversion of ingredients in cups:

Chocolate cake Ingredients

•1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
•2 cup sugar
•1/2 cup cocoa powder
•1 tsp baking powder
•2 tsp baking soda
•2 large eggs
•1cup dl strong coffee
•1 cup buttermilk
•1/2 cup vegetable oil
•1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Chocolate fudge frosting

•300 grams butter at room temperature
•2 cup powdered sugar
•1/2 cocoa powder
•200 grams dark chocolate, chips or chopped
•1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
•1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract

Hop over to her blog here, to get the entire recipe. I cannot wait to make this cake again. The thick and creamy chocolate fudge frosting goes very well with the cake.

Happy Baking!

Playful Stripes Cardigan

I have finally managed to finish this stripes cardigan I started for Maya/Inaya, before this winter season ended. So, Maya will get to wear it few times before it gets packed and shipped to my sister for her new baby(Inaya) which is on the way. Its made from a Alana Dakos pattern : Playful Stripes Cardigan. 

As soon as I started knitting it, and got stuck forever on the picot edge, I realized I would be lucky if I could  finish in time for Maya to wear it even once before the winters were over. But then my sister's baby girl is on the way, and this project quickly turned from just Maya's to Maya/Inaya project. This does not mean that Inaya won't get her share of sweaters knitted just for her. Can't wait to start using more of the pink wool from my stash. 

As soon as I got all the infinite loose threads in and the buttons were sewn, I did not want to waste even a single winter day, and put it on Ms. Maya immediately. She did not want to smile much for the camera that day.

The buttons are from lotsofbuttons website. 

I like the fitting of the sweater. It looked a bit on the smaller side, when I was knitting it. My husband was convinced that Maya won't get to wear it even once because of the size. But it turned out just fine, and I like the fact that it does not have a loose fitting. 

Happy Knitting!

Valentine Cookies

I decided to take on the cookie project again, after more than 3 years. Last time I baked, it was on my son’s first birthday. And I have this vague memory of baking,  rebaking, and decorating cookies for over a month. In the end, I had so many cookies as a result of multiple trials.

This time was little different. I felt more confident baking, and my little chef was there to help me. We were baking cookies to give out at his school for friends and teachers for Valentine’s Day. These cookies were accompanied by an airplane card which I guess would be another post after valentine’s.

 I followed the Land O'Lakes Butter Cookies recipe. Its simple, quick and tasty.

Here is our cookie dough ready and divided into 3 parts.

 First batch ready. Hot and crispy cookies.

Poof! First batch gone. Dad and son were only tasting the cookies. Well, there was nothing left to decorate for Valentine’s.

So, out came the next 2 lots of cookie dough and baked few more batches.

I bought this vintage valentine image from etsy. And got it printed on edible paper from a bakery close by. Pasted the edible paper using cornstarch liquid. 

I skipped the step of frosting the cookie with royal icing, and directly pasted the image to the cookie. Added a border using royal icing.

I am sure the image would have looked brighter if I had frosted the cookie, but really, are the kids ever going to notice it? And it saved me 5 hours of work and 2 days of drying time.

Couple of decorated cookies also vanished every time I had my back towards them. But thankfully, I had extra J

Happy Baking and a Very Happy Valentine’s Day!

High Tea Baby Shower Invitations

My darling sister is expecting a baby girl soon, and I am super excited to throw her a shower. She is one of those people who have tons of friends and all are equally excited for this shower. So, one of her friends suggested the theme of party as ‘Tea’, as my sis is really into ‘Tea’. She loves going to tea boutiques and trying out new flavors. I think her only pet peeve with her husband is that he is not very fond of tea. So she cannot enjoy her evening cup of tea with him. And she gets real envious if she calls me in the evening, and me and my husband are having our evening tea together, especially, when it’s my husband who has prepared it. She keeps reminding me how lucky I am that there is someone to make tea for me. So, it was more than appropriate to have a Tea Party for her and to welcome the beautiful little girlie on her way.

I designed this Vintage High Tea card for the invites. It had to be Pink. Got it printed from Staples on a cream cardstock paper(selected by my 4 year old). Anything selected by my son makes it even more special for my sister.

For the envelope, I ordered brown Kraft envelopes from etsy. I love them.  I needed to do something to the envelope, so added a liner with a vintage flower print. You can see the tutorial on how to add liner from cakeeventsblog.

And remember the pink doilies that me and my son colored a while back? Well, I decided to use some of those on the envelopes. I wish I had colored them lighter. I remember reading somewhere that it needed a lot of color, so I poured in half a bottle of my food color. Next time, going to use my judgment.

This is half doily on each envelope.

I wish I had a calligraphy pen to write on the envelope. Well, maybe next time.

Can’t wait to start on other project for this shower.
Here are rest of the details from the shower.

Hoping that this little girl(once she grows up) would provide her Mom with never ending company over a cup of tea, for all the evenings ahead.

Colored Doilies

I am all into vintage things these days. So, the other day when I saw cute doilies at Michaels, I grabbed few in different sizes without any clear intention on how I was going to use these. I am still thinking on the different ways I could use it, in the mean time I decided to color these and just have fun. 

I colored these by dipping them in the water with food color.  I changed the concentration of color at times, so they all are in different shades of pretty pink.

I'll be back soon with a project using doilies.

Happy Crafting!