ארכיון Cakes | Page 2 of 4 | Cake Lab (2024)

I haven’t uploaded a blog post for more than a month now, because I tried to be dairy free for a while and the only result of that experiment was a decrease in my baking desire. The damned experiment ended last week on my birthday with a very dairy tiramisu cake. To go back to normal, I made a geode cake for little Eliora and Archie who came to visit from the States.

The pistachios I brought from Bronte in Sicily last summer are just about to end. I bought 4 kilograms that I used in a variety of desserts. I saved the very last pistachios for a special dessert that won my heart (and stomach) at the end of the trip: cassatina. A festive Sicilian cake filled with sweet ricotta cream, covered by green pistachio marzipan and decorated with candied fruits.

Not long ago, I traveled to the US and came back with a lot of baking cookbooks, as usual after a trip abroad. Three of the cookbooks I acquired are full of gluten free recipes – vegan too. I looked for an interesting recipe to try, but the list of ingredients was too complicated. Then I started flipping through Yotam Ottolenghi & Helen Go’s Sweet, and found a few gluten free recipes fit to my taste. One recipe looked especially inviting, full of Persian love, whatever that may be.

Emily celebrated her second birthday last month. She was visiting from the US with her parents, and her mom, Karen, asked me to make her a colorful birthday cake (= rainbow cake!). I met Karen about 15 years ago, when I was a kid myself. Well, not really a kid, but a college student straight out of high school. Her request made me nostalgic and led me to make a birthday cake for a cute little girl I hadn’t met yet. How did I know she’s cute? Karen sent me a picture of Emily with her whole face buried inside the cake. A girl after my own heart.

This banana cake is actually an upgraded version of my last birthday cake. True, it sounds a little strange that an English Cake would be considered an upgrade over a tall and festive birthday cake, but don’t judge a book by its cover.

Two years ago I had a little breakdown. Not that I actually had anything to complain about, but I felt like something in my life was missing. Something small to complete a smile at the end of the day. One day, on my way to visit the family in Jaffa, I was listening on repeat to Lane Boy by Twenty One Pilot. Suddenly it struck me why I love this song so much.

One of my cool aunts asked me to make a birthday cake for her daughter. When I asked her what kind of cake she was thinking about, she sent me a picture of a Reese’s cake decorated with the peanut butter cups themselves. I took the challenge under one condition: the family must act as my guinea pigs and provide me with constructive criticism. There was another tiny condition: that they would leave me a small piece of cake to try, but somehow all the evidence disappeared after the knife started cutting the cake.

On September 5, 2017, I celebrated my 35th birthday. On the very same day, ruby chocolate was revealed to the world. Coincidence? I don’t think so. The universe gave me a pink gift – only it took a year and a half to reach me. Ruby chocolate is the fourth of its kind (after dark, milk and white). The color is pink and the taste is sweet and a bit sour, with no artificial flavors or food coloring. Thanks universe!