Yasmine's Official B'Day Cake (Princess Castle Cake)

Like I promised, here I am posting Yasmine's Official 2010 Princess Castle Cake. Assembling the cake was a bit challenging, but I made it.
All the decorations apart from the kit were 100% home made marzipan, given we are an almond-lover family; I sandwiched the cake with my favorite White Chocolate Mousse, that I discovered chez Hanaa and loved when I tasted the Chocolate Apricot Roll with Lacquer Glaze, another HCB favorite.
The white outer frosting layer is made of whipping cream, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla & almond flavoring. the cake itself is a three 15'' by 11'' carrot cake, adapted from Sweet Melissa's book.
Enjoy pictures..!!

ABC- Mocha-Almond O'Marble Cake

This is our (myself and Hanaa) third ABC entry, and so far I have been enjoying every recipe I made in our new baking club from our Flo Braker's splendid book: Baking for all Occasions.

 My adapted usual marble cake has always been a family Moroccan recipe requiring the use of oil in lieu of butter, yogurt in lieu of milk. It has always been a hit in my family.
 

When I picked this recipe, I furthermore wanted to compare and contrast my adapted and Flo Braker's recipe only to realize that both recipes are winners with all their specific components.
I dug on the net to find this great recipe here

ABC: Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake

A very lemony favorite is this cake, which I consider more like a brioche than a cake. This is our second ABC of the month entry. I was really excited about this recipe when my friend Hanaa chose it, especially that we have shared great enthusiasm about making it in a long phone conversation we had about three months ago, when were roughly getting prepared for the ABC Project.

No wonder, the cake/brioche tasted wonderful; the classic American companion of lemon and cream cheese made the glaze very special, and the dough was a breeze to make. Above all, the lemon zest, sugar, and butter heavenly intermingling rendered this creation simply marvellous. In sum, this is an excellent recipe; I highly recommend it to the lemon-butter flavored brioche lovers.
Click here for full recipe: http://leitesculinaria.com/535/recipes-lemon-scented-pull-apart-coffee-cake.html

Yasmine's Mini-Birthday White Velvet Cupcakes

Yasmine has been impatiently waiting for her birthday; but since her birthday fell on a weekday, I decided to arrange a mini celebration with just me, the kids and my close friend Hanaa. (Hubby couldn't attend neither since he's out of town :( )
The official birthday party is postponed to the first Saturday of the month of April Inshallah to fit all my guests' schedules. So stay tuned for another birthday cake...

Amine's 1st Birthday

The cake was made as a surprise gift to one of my friends' son's 1st birthday. The family received the cake with great joy and appreciation.Teddy Bear's smile was magically transferred to all kids attending the party.

Pain D' Epice

 I suggested this bread recipe as an opening of our ABC Project, first because I wanted to break the rule of having to start with making a cake; and second for the richness of its aroma. While baking, the oven released a fantastic smell.
It really was a breeze assembling the ingredients. However,I sensed that the amount of flour was too much for one loaf of bread. I insisted that the recipe should stay as is especially I've never made this type of  "Sans Yeast Bread". the only minor change I did  was subtracting 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and adding the same amount of baking powder, (and that based on a prior experience when I used too much baking soda in one of the online recipes I made, and it tasted awful...Uhgg!!)

ABC of the Month

Starting March of 2010, my friend Hanaa and I will be launching a new monthly baking project, called the "ABC of the Month", which stands for the "Avid Baker's Challenge of the Month". Each month, one of us picks a recipe. We alternate every month. And on every first Tuesday of the month, we'll post our experiences and photos of the baked creation, but never the original recipe from the book, as we'd like to encourage everyone to buy the book.For the year 2010, we've chosen to bake from Flo Braker's "Baking For All Occasions".
We are in no way affiliated with Flo Braker. We're just fans of her books.At this time, the plan is to pick a different book for 2011 to bake from. The final decision on this will come at the end of this year.

Yasmine's 3rd Birthday 2009

This last year's Birthday cake was themed with Shrek Movie as my kids love this movie so much.
I was lucky one day to find this kit (used on cake) on clearance for one dollar. My hubby should have been thinking: "I'm lucky or what to have such a frugal wife:-)"

Yasmine's 2nd Birthday cake pictures 2008

 The pictures below are little outdated, but I thought I would share them with my blog visitors.
Enjoy..!
Stay tuned...Yasmine's next birthday is drawing near..

 

I made smiley Bigbird carrot cake for my little guests 

Mon Pain Merveilleux (my original recipe)

Being a bread lover, I came up with this idea of inserting sour cream in this recipe that I developed myself.
Try it and let me know how you like it.

Free choice week: Classic Carrot Cake

I chose the classic carrot cake this week for one main reason: My kids love carrot cake, and it's healthier for them too..
This is my third time making this cake; I'm sure I'll make over and over.
I like the fact that this recipe requires using oil in lieu of butter, this keeps the cake moist either cold or at room temperature.

HCB making: True Orange Genoise

Here I am, gladly entering my first posting in HCB, although I baked several cakes from Rose's Heavenly Cakes in the past.
To paraphrase what Rose meant by "true orange" is the use of actual Seville oranges, the intense sourness of those oranges is served to win over the chocolate flavor which always dominates. I totally agree based on what I heard and read about the Seville oranges.
Not knowing that it would be a  challenge to find the recommended kind of oranges to be used, I waited till the last three days to realize that it's impossible to make "La vraie genoise d'oranges avec les oranges de Seville". Plainly but deliciously, my last resort was to make the cake with Navel oranges which I had sittting on my kitchen's counter anyway.

Yasmine's 1st Birthday 2007

My daughter, Yasmine's, first Birthday was a great baking experience for me, as I set my mind into making the best pastries and cake I could for my lovely princess.

I invited many friends and everyone had fun; It was a special day for Princess Yasmine; I could see hapiness in her eyes.

My latest party's menu

                                               Spinach and eggplant dip Moroccan style

Moroccan Couscous

There is really nothing better than enjoying this authentic Moroccan dish especially with family and close friends. Very healthy too...

End of the school year cake 2009

The occasion was the TIZA Team performance 2009 for doing such a good job reaching their goal...Yeah

Blueberry cake

Very tasty !!

Loved this one...