Category Archives: Cake & Cupcakes

Marzipan modelling has a long history in many parts of the world. There are even museums to the art of decorative marzipan. Szabo Marzipan Museum in Budapest is just one. Take a peak at the video and I promise we are not doing anything as complicated. Fruits and figurines, cities and celebrities have all been […]

It is interesting to see traditions being formed in present day. I wonder what people will say about them in 50 years. One example is carrot cake. As sugar and other sweeteners were scarce in England during the war years, carrots were an oft used alternative. Although there are references to cakes that go back […]

Not everyone enjoys cakes and cookies chocked full of nuts, fruit and spices. Sometimes it is a particular variety of fruit that is not liked but it may also be allergies, dentures or diet restrictions that make Christmas goodies a challenge. Offering a range of textures and flavours helps everyone have something they can nibble […]

I usually think of birthdays as a time when the birthday person should feel special and receive, as much as possible, what they would like. I have pictures of my grandfather in Indonesia, in the early 1900 hundreds, sitting on the “birthday chair”, decorated with fronds and flowers and although not all cultures chose to […]

Sometimes you just don’t want the usual. Chocolate? Nah. Local fresh fruit? Not in season yet. How about…? Takes too much time and effort. This coffee cake may be just the thing. Yes, there are several steps, like a simple struesel to make but once it is in the oven you can choose to be […]

Cherry Chocolate Cheesecake is a good choice any time of the year. I happened to have a lot of homemade cream cheese in the house from several recent classes. One portion was firmer than the other, more like what one would get when buying a brick of cream cheese. The other had not drained quite […]

I have been wanting to give this a go for a very long time. You see my Mother had a cookbook, The Woman’s Home Companion. It was first published in 1942 and was aimed at the coming war years. The cake section included options for 1, 2, 3, & 4 egg cakes as rationing was […]

We have new neighbours! They follow a vegetarian, no egg diet and came for tea last year. I decided to go with my regular wacky cake recipe and substituted out the egg for a little vinegar to help the baking soda along. This is an old recipe for chocolate cake that has been around since […]

With so many things being extra sweet at this time of the year, using fresh cranberries for a bit of pucker makes a refreshing addition to the cookie tray. Cranberries and British Columbia go way back. They are native to this part of the world and were traded as far away as California by 1827 […]

Basbousa is the name I learned for this Egyptian sweet but I know that this style of recipe is known the Mediterranean over by many other names, basbūsah, harīsa, nammoura, shamali, revani or ravani, gabelouze, kalbelouz, and qualb-el-louz, ραβανί and ρεβανί. I am sure I have missed a few. Some variations have ground nuts mixed […]