24/07/2013

A Birthday Cake


Blackberry Pistachio Sponge Cake
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I saw this cake on Pinterest a while back and have always wanted to recreate it and I finally did on Mother's Day. It turned out amazingly and was such a light summery cake that when my mom's birthday came along we decided to make it again. I assembled the cake at my grandmas house on Mother's Day and forgot my camera and iPod so I wasn't able to take a picture of it, but this time I made sure to take get some good shots. I remember reading the recipe and getting the gyst of what was required for it and took it from there.
First you will need a really good/trusty sponge cake, the recipe I used was a double batch of the Lazy Daisy cake found in the Company's coming Cake recipe book. Poured into a 13" spring form pan and cut into three layers, I brushed each layer with a generous amount of simple syrup (equal parts sugar to water warmed up for a couple minutes in the microwave). I learned in my Sugar Baby recipe book by Gesine Bullock-Prado that bakeries brush simple syrup on all their cakes to help keep them moist! I would suggest letting that sit for a couple of hours (or overnight properly sealed up) so that it gets a chance to soak right through. The end result of the cake ends up being layers that consist of cake --fresh raspberry jam (for its tartness -- store bought black currant would be a good alternative) --whipped cream -- chopped pistachios -- blackberries (placed strategically around the edge so you can see them peeking through) -- and repeat for all three layers. For the top and around the edges I even sprinkled some purple rose petals on the one I made for Mother's Day.
I've also found that if you let the cake settle for a couple of hours before you cut it, it is much much easier -- this one was assembled before supper and eaten right after and it was quite the mess trying to get the pieces onto plates, the one we had for Mother's Day however was a breeze to cut but, it was sitting for awhile before we ate it.
This past week went by so fast I can't even believe it! I received my iPad mini on Monday which got me very excited to be able to be back on Instagram and twitter again - my iPod crapped out on me (it had gone through so much in the nearly 3 years I had it that it just had enough)! Anyways so that's one reason I kind of went MIA on the Internet the other is pure laziness I guess.
We have had quite the summer here, a mix of really warm muggy days and a generous amount of rain! I keep thinking I need to take a picture of the beautiful canola fields that surround our acreage before they are done flowering. They have been especially brilliant the past couple weeks it's been sunny with a few dark rain clouds so everything looks sort of gloomy but the sun shining on the fields makes the canola look as if it is glowing neon yellow -- quite the contrast to the dark grey sky! Perhaps that will be in my next post...
I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week and let me know if you try out the cake!

P.S. The blackberry-pistachio cupcakes I featured on here a couple of weeks ago was the cupcake version inspired by this cake!

09/07/2013

Beach Days

Better late than never I guess! These are some pics from the Canada Day long weekend. We spent Sunday and Monday lounging on the beach, and thank goodness we did because was it ever hot!

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These two rascals came out of the bush on Sunday just as we were packing up to go back home and ofcourse that created quite the sensation with these youngsters! The deer at Shaw's Point are pretty tame until they don't want to be anymore so you should be pretty careful (as someone warned them after I snapped this shot).
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Some of our extended family joined us on Canada Day and we got to enjoy some ice cream sandwiches that I made! They were pretty tasty!  I got the recipe from Martha Stewart and they were really easy to make actually. My favourite was the vanilla ice cream, coated with candied almonds, the one above is just mint chocolate chip.
What a busy couple weeks it has been! I just started my full-time job at the cooperators on the 2nd so a lot of my time and energy has been devoted to that. It was quite the shock information wise!! I came home my first day with a splitting headache and a dread to go back to work, because how was I possibly supposed to remember all of that! Well I'm just starting my second week and it has already gotten a lot better, I am still being "trained" but I am finding my way around.
From now on I'm counting down the days till the weekend...that will be my life :P On the plus side I'm making money and can look forward to a possible Europe trip in the spring(!?)