by Marcela M. | Aug 24, 2011 | Blog, Cakes, Parties, Recipe Box, Recipes, Sweets, Uncategorized
Good morning dear friends! I hope you are having a lovely week.
As I promised, here is the first post with the birthday cakes I prepared and decorated for my babies’3rd birthday (can I still call them babies? until they are 21?).
This year we decided to postpone their birthday party until November. We are travelling to Argentina for the first time since theywere born, so we thought that it would be a good opportunity to share this special moment with friends and family. We did have, anyway, a small family celebration : we filled the living room floor with balloons the night before, so that they would find them when waking up, and left their presents in their small table. And of course, there were cakes! Since it was just the four of us, the cakes were small , but I still thought it was important for each of them to have their own, and for the cakes to be decorated according to their personalities.
Both cakes had the same flavours: 2 layers of lemon cake, and 1 layer of chocolate cake, filled with 1 layer of blueberry jam and 1 layer of chocolate buttercream, and covered in fondant.
Luka’s cake was covered in green fondant and decorated with racing cars made with fondant. I made the racing cars the night before decorating the rest of the cake, to let them dry properly, following this tutorial from Cake Journal. I do not have all the instruments required so I had to be creative, for eg: in order to shape the car, I used a big knife and a fondant smoother (instead of two fondant smoothers), I used a lollipop stick to curve the car to make space for the head of the driver to sit in (instead of a ball tool), and instead of sugar glue, I used sugar syrup (=almibar).
In order to make the asphalt, I rolled black fondant, I placed the cake pan in which I had baked the cake on top of it, and I cut around it its perimeter with a pizza cutter. That gave me a circle of the exact same size as the top of the cake, but I didn’t want that much grass so, using the same pan to guide me, I cut a portion of the circle, creating a crease. I then placed the crescent moon on top of the cake, draw white lines in it with royal icing and glued the cars on top. I made grass with royal icing, using a #133 piping tip and added a few grains of green sugar sprinkles.
I covered the perimeter of the cake with tyres, made with the back of a #2D piping tip, and embossed in the center with a #10 tip. I also made two racing flags (I didn’t take a picture of them, sorry!) to put in front of the cake). One was yellow and white and the other one was black and white. To make them, I used a small square cookie cutter, and cut 1 white square, 1 black square and 1 yellow square. I then divided each square in four parts and mixed them to create the flags.
I finally added the candles, and that was all, the cake was ready!
As you can see it was a very easy cake, but Luka loved it. He was so excited about the cars, the candles and the wheels around it! He loves cars, trucks, trains, anything that has wheels in it. I was happy to see him happy.
In my next post I’ll show you Zoe’s cake, which was girly, like her.
Have a nice week!
by Marcela M. | Jul 27, 2011 | Blog, Crafts and DIY, Parties, Recipe Box, Recipes, Salads and dips, Uncategorized
Summer in Cyprus is hot. Very. Hot. But this year it feels hotter due to the energy crisis caused by the destruction of the island’s main power plant. Things, however, are what they are and, I believe, it is for each of us to approach them with a positive attitude and make the best out of them. In my case, this means trying to add a little beauty to everyday life, and taking advantage of what we have.
We live in a apartment, so there is no garden or swimming pool where to spend our afternoons. What we do have is a small balcony which we have surrounded by a straw fence to keep the strong sun at bay, and where we can sit and relax, enjoying the sweet summer breeze when the sun is not too high. And, when weather permits it, we have lunch or dinner there too.
Last Monday, we did just that. It was not too hot (by our standards, anyway ;), so I set up a happy summery table setting and served a quick early lunch in the balcony.
I put a white tablecloth on the table, and used lime green napkins under the plates to add a little bit of colour.
I put lemmons on a glass vase to serve as centerpiece, and used a set of salt and pepper shakers that we had bought when we lived in Ivory Coast and that matched the table’s colour palette.
I served lemonade in small green bottles (that originally contained German beer!) and added grey paper straws to them for the babies. And also for me, because I like them 😉
Using baker’s twine (in Peapod and Lemondrop, from the Twinery), I wrote “eat, drink, laugh” on a piece of paper and put it on a small frame, next to the lemons, to serve as motto for the meal.
Finally, I folded yellow paper napkins on a pouch, added some ribbon and a paper circle (with Bon Appétit written in it) to dress it up a little, and placed the cutlery inside . You can download these and other tags for free from the Twinery’s blog here. All you have to do then is to print them in cardboard paper and cut them using a 2″ circle punch or just a pair of scissors)
The menu consisted of different salads, dips and a delicious lemon coconut mousse. The following recipe corresponds to one of these salads, called Tzaziki, which is traditional here in Cyprus and which, with some variations, is also very common in Serbia (where I actually discovered it and where it is called Tarator ). It is very refreshing, simple to make, and it tastes great with meat or simply with some pitta bread. At home we call it “cucumber salad”. I’ll share all other recipes in my next post!
In order to make Tarator/Tzaziki you will need: 1 cucumber, 1 clove of garlic, greek yogurt and a little bit of parsley.
The procedure couldn’t be simpler: Cut the cucumber into thin slices, and then chop them finely. Place it in a bowl. Chop a clove of garlic (or half, if you are not a very garlicky person 😉 and add it to the cucumber. Add greek yogurt (500 ml) and mix well. Chop a few parsley leaves to garnish.
This is the way I learnt to do it from my husband’s family, in Serbia. I should note, however, that here in Cyprus I learnt a different way which is equally delicious but a little bit different. In the Cypriot version they double the amount of cucumbers, garlic is optional, they generally add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and they replace parsley for dried mint. My recommendation: try both!
What’s the weather like these days where you live? How do you cope with it?
Have a lovely Wednesday and see you next week!
by Marcela M. | Jun 12, 2011 | About, Blog, Parties, Uncategorized
Last weekend I celebrated my 35th birthday with a small gathering of friends. I do not normally celebrate but this time it was special: it was half a decade: time to thank for the good things in my life and to reflect on where I want to be five years from now. So I prepared a small dessert table, because the celebration was to take place in the afternoon (it was easy for all of us with children, as there was no need to hire baby sitters!).
I wanted the table to have a girlie feeling, but not to be too girlie-hence no pink! I kept the color palette simple, with my two favorite colors: aqua and lavender, and I kept the details simple as well. Since my birthday takes place in the Spring, I thought I could include flowers in the design of the sweets, and so I did. All sweets were prepared by myself and I also made the food labels and the cake-pops’ flags.
Sweets included white chocolate dipped oreos (store-bought), decorated with royal icing (by myself)…
Chocolate cake pops, dipped in white chocolate and covered in sprinkles…
Meringue cookies…
Mini alfajores de maizena/ cornstarch cookies, filled with lemon curd (the aqua ones) and vanilla buttercream (the lavender ones)…
Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream…
And the birthday cake…
It consisted of four layers of lemon cake, colored in different shades of lavender, filled with two layers of lemon curd, and one layer of vanilla buttercream, and frosted with vanilla buttercream.
Do you like to celebrate your birthdays?
I had an Amy Atlas moment!
