Playful Kitten with Yarn Cake

When I first saw this cake on the cover of  50 Easy Party Cakes I fell in love with it.....couldn't wait to make one for myself. So yesterday there was a birthday at our home and my son wanted a kitty cat cake so here was my chance to make this extremely cute cake....


I used the pre-made black fondant from Wilton for the kitty and tinted their white fondant pink for the yarn. I also baked the cake in their sports ball cake pan . I made the yarn using one of my son's play-doh tools. The cake is a yellow cake and on top of it I put a layer of pink buttercream frosting. Then I placed the fondant yarn on the buttercream. In the book the author, Debbie Brown, covers the cake with a fondant covering too, but I skipped that step. The fondant yarn stuck quite well on the buttercream.

These cakes take a long time to make but I am always happy to make them, maybe it is all the sugar clouds I inhale while mixing the cake and buttercream batter that gives me a sugar high or it is just the look of pure pleasure on my son's face...... they are so easy to please at this age ;o)


I tried to take photos while making it but sometimes I was so in the zone that I plain forgot. The recipe that I used for the cake and buttercream icing is from my vanilla cupcake post. I baked the cake for 35-40 minutes at 350 F. As for the buttercream, I needed just half of the recipe.



Playful Kitten with Yarn Cake

Tangle some yarn over the kitten.

Banana Bread

I love this Banana Bread recipe; it is moist, full of banana flavour, tender, light and airy. I have had a lot of banana breads and I can confidently say this recipe is the best for me. I have been making this recipe for 10 years now and it has never failed me. I assure you even the non-banana lovers in your house will love this Banana Bread.

And I will know as bananas are not one of my favorite fruits. If it were left to me I would never buy it, but it is a very healthy fruit and I wanted my son to develop a liking to it, so usually you will find some bananas in the fruit platter on my countertop. Whenever some get left behind and are not eaten up in time, they get used up in this wonderful Banana Bread recipe. This is the only way I will eat bananas.


Recently I tried the Banana Loaf at Starbucks and while it tasted identical to this recipe ( there was some different flavoring added to it though ) the texture was nowhere near this recipe. Their loaf was dense and solid unlike the light and tender crumb this recipe produces. In fact I wonder why it is called a banana bread when it actually should be called a banana cake. Also the walnuts add a lovely texture and crunch to the bread. If you do not have any walnuts you can substitute it with almonds.

So if you have some bananas that are getting brown and needs to be used up pronto make this bread recipe and enjoy it with a nice cup of coffee or a tall glass of milk.



Banana Bread

Strawberry Shortcake

I live for desserts. Whenever we go to any new restaurant the first thing I do is to check out their dessert menu, and then I plan my meal accordingly. A while back we went to Clyde's of Reston at Reston Town Center. I have always passed that restaurant but never been inside. For some reason it always seemed full and overflowing with happy diners. But that one day as we were sitting in front of the water fountain watching all the children play we had a hankering for something sweet. We had already had a heavy brunch but that was four hours ago and it was too late for lunchtime and too early for dinner time, so we decided to get some desserts. We had two choices, the Ben & Jerry's ice cream parlor down the street or Clyde's just across the street. Since we had never been to Clyde's we decided to try it out.

Their dessert menu is sumptuous to say the least and they had Strawberry Shortcake as one of the desserts on their menu. We all ordered different desserts to try out a wide range, but we all agreed that the strawberry shortcake was the best. After a while, much to my dismay, they removed it from their menu. So now it was left up to me to re-create that wonderful dessert at home.

I tried several recipes and while good, they were still not as good as Clyde's till I got Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours. She had a recipe for Tender Shortcakes and my oh my these shortcakes were the most tender, moist and flavorful ever. I had finally found my shortcake recipe. I love her book , she has so many great recipes in it. This is one of my go to books for desserts. She has a wide range of breakfast sweets , yummy cookies, beautiful cakes, pies, tarts and all other kinds of desserts. Some of her desserts have a little bit of french influence in them. This might be because she lives part of the year in Paris hobnobbing with some of the famous pastry chefs. Yes, I envy her. I mean she does everything I dream of doing, write cookbooks, live in Paris and get to be friends with Pierre Herme !

Anyway, back to the Shortcake, it was the best. The biscuit when baked looked just like a photo out of a professional cookbook. The color was perfect golden brown and the tops were all cracked and crumbly just as the shortcake should be. One bite into it and it dissolves on the tongue. It is also too beautiful to look, the golden base holding the juicy, scarlet strawberries covered with the snow white of the cream and topped with the golden domes of the biscuit.

When buying strawberries, buy them from a farmer's market instead of your local grocery chain. The difference in taste is huge. The strawberries at the farmer's market are sweet with a hint of tartness and the ones at the grocery store are tart with a barely discernible hint of sweetness.