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.