Simple and versatile Birthday Cake

Oh, I love me some birthdays! Especially since my partner in crime and me have it on the same day! Much fun guaranteed!  This birthday started with cake, proceeded with getting lost in the woods and ended with a marvelous dinner outside under the stars. I could not have asked for more! Besides maybe, that you all start making your version of this easy-peasy birthday cake!

Nectarine Sheet Cake

Sometimes, summer can float by in a hazy pastel-colored blur of sunshine prickling on your skin, amazing news and lazy days spent lying in the warm grass. At least this was definitely how my vacation felt like. It was perfect. Including great local Island food, active beach days, Ice Cream and bee stings. Summer is for sure my favorite season. How was your summer so far? Went for a picnic already? Well than you better get going and take some pieces of this simple but great sheet cake with ya!

Rhubarb Cinnamon Cake

All right you guys, I need a break. I want a vacation. A real one. With lying on a beach, doing nothing – all day long. Only to indulge in great food and ruby red wine at the end of the day. And then starting the routine all over again the next day. Are you feelin me? I know you are. Unfortunately my vacation is still a week or so away. You might think: ok, stop whining, this is here in no time, really. What can I say, I never was good at waiting. Like ever. And it seems it is all I have been doing these past days. But the one thing that makes waiting easier, is building sandcastles in my mind. And planning what to eat on the trip. Like this great rhubarb cinnamon cake…oh, the fun we will have…

Blueberry Buttercake

Very-Berry-Recipe Vol.2.: We are off to blueberry land. Blueberry land is country full of butter sees with white sand sugar beaches and a waft of vanilla cake in the air. You’re with me on than one right? Off we go. 

Rhubarb cake

 

I love weekends. I mean, obviously, everybody does. I especially love weekends when I found the time to do something that inspired me. A lot of the times, that is trying out a new recipe. Or watching an amazingfilm. Or listening to a new record. Or have great read. When I got to do something that inspired me, it can give me an all-weekend high. I feel like I accomplished something, even though I did not in any way contribute to the book I just read. That does not really matter to me though, because I did accomplish learn a new view on something. I was challenged to learn that the world as it is could be different in millions of ways. And this fact might be something that one can forget over the passing of a dull working week. Weekends are for challenge and inspiration! Hope you had great one!

Chocolate Banana Muffins

Did you guys survive the chocolate Easter egg battle and hunt down every last one of those lil’ bastards? I for sure did, indoors by the way, cause who wouldn’t love snow at Easter? If you start getting sick of all the chocolate by itself, start making Easter egg cookies! I went for a more subtle chocolate version and made Nigella’s chocolate banana muffins. If you, like me, seem to always have slightly elderly bananas lying around the house, but not all the ingredients for a decent banana bread, these are a great option! Because throwing away food is the worst, as all Easter bunnies know! Happy belated Easter!

Cake dumplings in rhubarb compote

Rhubarb. What a heavenly sound in my ears. I just love its tart flavor and pale pink color - it is my definite forerunner of spring. Fun fact: in Germany, where I live, rhubarb is regarded a veggie, in the US it is by law considered a fruit. The mysterious ways of definitions and terms. All right, I will stop with my nerdy know-it-all drivel now and get back to the reason why you are hopefully still reading this. Light and crumbly vanilla cake dumpling in sweet rhubarb compote. There, this is how a perfect remedy against the sudden winter comeback looks like.

Red beet and chocolate bundt cake

After a full week of unexpected news, travels, visiting friend and awesome music, I am getting settled in for a quiet and hopefully peaceful weekend to ponder on the new arrived opportunities. With that being said, what would a homey weekend be without chocolate cake? Exactly. There are about a thousand takes on chocolate cake, several already displayed on this blog. This is a somewhat unusual one, I guess, for it contains veggies. Red beet, to be exact. But don’t fear, I am not going all health food on ya, the red beet just offers a sweet earthiness and moisture to a good old chocolate bundt cake. And some naturally colored adorable pink icing. What’s not to love? Go have yourself a great weekend!

Almond Chocolate Cake

I went home to my parents’ house this weekend. We had a lovely family time, my sister was in town too. It was wonderful. My mother told me I was eating too quickly. My father refused to see the movie we picked out for the family cinema trip. My sister did not like my new hair dye and told me so very bluntly. My grandmother was trying to figure what the heck was going on. I made chocolate cake. We spend hours sitting together around the fireplace, had several good laughs and talked about life and whatnot. Man, I love my family. Good to be home once in a while. Hope you are off to great week!

Lemon Polenta Cake

I decided to just bake and post so many spring inspired recipe, until the warm weather and sunny days actually arrive. So here we start with a bright yellow lemon polenta cake. Like sun on a plate. Did you notice those beautiful little speckles of color? This is from a wildflower sprinkles mix I got as a Christmas present from a lovely new friend of mine (fellow cat-lover and for sure unicorn in a former life) and I now use it to decorate about everything. I mean, isn’t it the prettiest thing to sprinkle flowers on your sweets? Hello, spring? Are you listening?

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Like I said you have to spoil the people that are special to you. And sometimes these people are so special that you dress them up as Snow White, kill the seven dwarfs for them as Red Riding Hood and bake them a huge chocolate fudge cake. Sounds weird? Well just think about what you would consider doing for your besties! Show the love people!

Peanutbutter jelly cake

Whow, sometimes there is just so much going on and so much to do. Deadlines, job applications, life and also … birthdays! I find it very important to not forget making a little effort for your loved ones, although the daily hassle has got you in his grip quiet tightly. I am not saying you can always find the time to make a huge birthday cake – a card, a personal mix cd, or whatever suits you is completely sufficient. Just let them know that they are special to you and appreciated!
And what says more ‘You’re special’ than peanut butter jelly time transformed into a cake? Especially when it is pastel pink and decorated with little stars? Right. To quote a dear friend of mine (with a lovely blog of her own): “This is the perfect combination of a sandwich and a cake!” 

Banana Bread

Alright, alright. Here is a little break from Christmas charoling and decorating the house with twinkly lights. Get out the bourbon and the mushy bananas you have hanging around the house, cause all you eat right now are tangerines. Just a plain non-sparkly loaf cake will do. Breath in, breath out. See, no presents or tree or decoration to worry about. Bust out a big pot of coffee and enjoy the quiet. And maybe put on the twinkly lights.

Starting your blog with a bang…

… or with one cake at a time. In one of the several blogs I am literally addicted to, I once read that you should start your blog with a bang. That idea has kinda put me under pressure.
I  started questioning myself: which one of the cakes is actually ‘a bang’? Which one, is that one precious cake, that would set the tone of my blog and foremost, my cookbook project.
What you might realized already, took me some time. There really is not that ONE cake. Only lots of cakes that fit different occasions. So I started off with something, that for me, recalls everything of this season: my cherished red-wine pound cake.
The earthiness of spices and red wine combined in a soft, airy, chewy pound cake. If you love autumn, you gotta love this. Even if you don’t like autumn, you will love this cake.