I usually ask my mother to make marble cake for my birthday. It brings back lots of happy memories, because my Grandma used to make it for my birthdays when I was a kid. This year I wanted to make it for myself. After all, I finally have the necessary equipment (including, most importantly, an oven) for baking! It was a bit stressful because I had been travelling all week and had to make the cake after the first guest had already arrived. I was nervous since it was only my second time making this cake, but it turned out wonderful!

I’m still on the bread making train! I’ve made the Super Amazing Easiest Bread Recipe Ever a few times, playing around with the ingredients. We’ve settled on olives as our favourite additional ingredient. It gives the bread a Mediterranean taste! I’m still trying to adjust the ratio of water to flour, because the dough is too liquid if I just follow the recipe. (Or maybe I didn’t convert the measurements correctly?)

Phil will often buy gingerbread cake at the supermarket. He’s not a cake guy, but he likes his gingerbread cake! Out of curiosity, I googled for recipes one day and discovered I had most of the ingredients. (Also, I needed to stress bake because I had an incredibly important interview regarding my stipend that week.) I whipped up this gingerbread cake in the morning before work. It’s delicious! Next time I’ll use the spring form, though. I couldn’t spread out the topping enough with the loaf tin, and as a result, it sank into the dough. (Here‘s the link for the recipe, but it’s in German.)

I just realized I baked a lot this month. I guess it’s because I got all these baking tins for Christmas and it’s been fun testing them. Below is the banana bread with cranberries I made last week. I loved the juiciness of the cranberries in contrast with the texture of the banana dough! Will definitely make it again. (Recipe, in German.)

This weekend, I tried something a bit more elaborate: red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. I’m still working on the aesthetics, but I’m really proud I managed to cut the cake without any unwanted breakage! Next time I’m going to cut it twice to distribute the frosting more evenly. On a whim, I decided to add a chocolate coating, hoping it’d cover up all the uneven spots. I didn’t have enough couverture, though, so I mixed in some melted coconut oil. It didn’t work out exactly how I wanted (still not enough coating), but oh well. It’s delicious! That’s all that matters. (Recipe for the red velvet cake and for the cream cheese frosting, both in German.)