Dove Knits

Monday, December 22, 2008

Piece of cake!

I occasionally dabble at baking. Usually I make cookies, and, not to brag, but they come out quite tasty. I make quick breads, too, like banana bread, and every now and then I make candy, like toffee.

But I've only ever made a couple of cakes, and some of those times were from a mix, frosted with store bought frosting. Nothing wrong with that, but I'm a from-scratch kinda girl. I like things coming out of my kitchen to be not from cans. I think it tastes way better, and I'm way more proud of it, too.

So I volunteered to bake my husband's birthday cake this year. His favorite is black forest cake, so that's what I went with (recipe here, but I left out kirsch).

And I think it came out quite well!






So the rosettes are a bit uneven, so what?

And it was delicious. Sadly, the layers shifted around during transport (the party was at his grandparents' house), but I was able to fix it cosmetically. It did, however, squeeze out the cherry filling alot, so it was more just chocolate cake (not that that's a problem). Next time I won't use whipped cream between layers and just put the cherries.

Recipe notes, if you want to try it:

-The cake is very stiff and dense, like a brownie (tastes like a brownie, too). It does not rise. I ended up making two cakes to get 4 layers. Thankfully, the density of the cake makes it very easy to work with for layering.

-The cherry filling is awesome, and would work for pie or tarts or what have you, as well. It's nice and tangy!

-The chocolate whipped cream is divine. Lightly sweet, with more of a chocolate essence than full-out whammo chocolate flavor.

-Again, I left out kirsch. I added a bit of cherry extract to stuff, instead.

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Monday, December 08, 2008

Another niece sweater

Since I have two nieces, I couldn't very well just make one sweater!

This one is completely different. It's a seamless bottom-up raglan with a split neck to go over big baby noggins. The cable pattern is "Balanced Rings" from Barbara Walker's 3rd Treasury, which I finally own (squee!).



The yarn, is, of course, Paton's Classic Merino, from my seemingly never-ending reserves of it.

In baby news, I'm at 11 weeks! I'm showing a little bit, and still feeling crummy -- crummy enough not to knit, in fact. Not that I'm too sick to, but I'm just sick and tired enough not to want to. So I've put just about all my Christmas knitting on hold and am buying gifts instead.