Birthday cake,

Tomorrow my fiancee turns a year older. For that special day, I baked him a birthday cake as it has been tradition last 2 years :) This time I tried to make a bit different cake. I never have used marzipan lock before and as they say, better late than never :) So, I thought that why not to give it a try.

Sponge was made yesterday after my work day.  Recipe for that I took again from Manuela's blog. Only difference from her sponge was, that I used bigger baking form and instead 1/4 teaspoon almond essence, my sponge has 1 whole teaspoon of almond essence :) Accidents happens. I just forgot myself to pour it on spoon :D

Since sponge was made yesterday, then all other part was left for today :) Now it is done and waiting in fridge tomorrow, so that I can give it to my dear Fiancee. 

For first layer in his cake I used fresh homemade strawberry pure, what I made summer and had it in freezer.

Top of that I added vanilla cream and new layer of sponge.

New layer I filled as well first with strawberry jam and vanilla cream. 

Top of that I made a cream, what was not that sweet. For that I used 3 dl whip-cream and 125 gr. quark. First I whipped cream hard and added quark. I mixed it slowly with spoon a little. 

After that I added last layer of sponge and covered all that with white marzipan lock.

Decorating cake was easy. There everyone can just let their imagination loose and it comes out as you want it come out. My result looked out like that:

Helper in the kitchen,

While I baked today, when I got a help in the kitchen :) That helper had gray fur and long tail and 4 legs :) He thought that I need  some help :)

Breakfast buns,

Today I baked a breakfast buns for tomorrow morning. I want to try to surprise my love in bed on his birthday morning. As I know, I am not the best wake upper in the free morning, when I baked them today instead tomorrow. Recipe I have taken from one of the best blog. In any interest. recipe can be found from Manuela's blog. They was very easy to make. Only different was that I used different form for baking and divided dough less portions. As Manuela writes, after dough is done, make buns and let them stay in room temperature for 30 minutes, so that they can grow a little.  After that bake them  30 minutes on 170 degrees and ready to eat they are. For me, since the buns was bigger than her's it took time to bake them for 45 minutes. After that, they looked nice and ready to eat, but as they was meant for tomorrow, that means - I have to be patient and wait :)

Pillow case,

Yesterday evening I started to embroider a pillow case since I wanted make one pillow to our armchair downstairs under the steps. I had bought a ordinary size pillow from IKEA and thought to make case around it out of linen. I used bit neutral colors on embroidery since I wanted that they fit with the reading corner. Result is here. If someone is interested, you are welcome to order :) As usually, colors on the pattern can be changed.