Late Bloomer - I'm not perfect series

Have you ever in situation that when you see around everybody looks are so perfect , lucky in life but you ?. Everyone looks so divine. They have many things in life, they are become a great author, have their own careers, and looks so brights !! I feel that way sometime (ok, alot)  and those feeling made me 'sad '. Not until I sat with an old lady, friend of mine a couple days ago - we had a cup coffee , chit chat for almost 2 hours . We felt comfort with each other, and share our stories together. The story of her's life made me almost cry - I feel that is too much for her to 'carry' herself. But I tell you, she is the strong woman I ever met.  I'm not gonna tell you, what kind of situation she has. But the point is : you can't always look up , you need to look down too, to see people who doesn't have a perfect life and those will make you feel like  a lucky person in the world who doesn't need to go through that situation.  That is for sure, comforting me that I can't be perfect because I am  what I am - be myself and feel blessing with things on my hand right now, I don't need to see how beautiful people grass is, I just need to trim my own grass and make them as beautiful as people yards :D

Anyway, what on the earth this pictures has thing to do with story above ? I tell you this one, may be I'm a late bloomer  ; I just start sewing, quilting, baking when my age is more than 40yo!!  LOL  - and this is my first time quilting ever, well, I made several projects before but typical of me cut..sew and set aside, never intend to finished it up.  But this project really make me happy ; and if you see carefully, the sewing line is not straight ; kind of mess up little bit - but after the project finish, the picnic blanket is look 'perfect' to me   LOL  - oh well, mommy try to make an adjustment  ^__^

Now you will see the related between story above and my quilting project !! You don't have to see one by one and will find un-perfect thing, just need to see overall finish product ..  so comfortable picnic blanket and ... looks good, *eeerrr.. stop talking now !*

Do you see in the bottom of blanket ? I borrow the sketch from my daughter drawing paper and transfer to fabric and did a little handstich. :)  

oh , Ms.D , I hope you like this picnic blanket and every time you see the bottom of blanket you will know who you looking at ?

I'm not perfect

I trying to balance my time between : so active kid, a kind of picky eater husband, house works, taking care of my garden, sewing, baking, social life, facebook-ing, twitter-ing, blaaah... not always easy :p - ooh, well what I can say that I'M NOT PERFECT but I KEEP TRYING !

Happy Mother's Day for all mom around the world, especially my dear mom - who I never seen for almost 3 years, just heard her voice. I miss you so much mom, I wish I can sit enjoy the nice afternoon with you with a cup of coffee and talk about life or whatever comes to our mind.

Let me share this recipe to you, who know you decide to bake some for your mom too :) by the way this cake is glutten free.. so delicious

Flourless Orange Cake(Recipe from taste.com.au)

2 oranges
3 eggs
215g caster sugar
300g almond meal
1 tsp baking powder

Wash the oranges, place them in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain, then return to pan, cover with water and bring to boil. Let simmer another 15 minutes. Drain and coarse chop the orange discarding any seeds.

Place the oranges in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth.

Whisk the eggs and the sugar until thick and pale. Add the orange, almond meal and baking powder and fold until just combined. Pour into a greased, 22cm round pan and bake in 170C for about 50 minutes or until skewer inserted comes out clean.

Serve with pure icing sugar and decorate with orange rind

Birthday Cake for my daughter

I pretty much busy lately, almost forget to make a birthday cake for my daughter. And just a second, I decided to 'just' baking vanila cake.. and within 2 hours everything is ready. My daughter was so happy with her's birthday cake .. sorry dear, I forget all about the butterfly decoration you've been talk before.. *silly mom..* This is basic vanila cake, but as my daughter wish, I divide the batter – one portion vanila and another portion is chocolate batter, feel free to add the fine chocolate powder as you wish.

Birthday Chocolate cake

Ingredients
500 g butter, room temperature
500 g sugar
8 eggs
450 g all purpose flour
25 g corstarch
1 tablespoon baking powder

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 ºF
Prepare 4 7 inches cake pans (butter and flour the bottom and the sides of the pans)
In a large bowl, place butter and sugar, and mix well
Add eggs one by one
Add flour, cornstarch and baking powder, and beat until combined
Pour batter into pans and bake for 25 minutes
Leave the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes and then turn out to cool.
The cakes can be frozen until needed

For the chocolate buttercream:
I double the recipe so enough to cover 4 layer cake and decoration around

Ingredients:
8 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
6 cups confectioners' sugar
16 Tbs. (2 sticks) unsalted butter
6 Tbs. milk, plus more, if needed
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt

Directions:
Have all the ingredients at room temperature.

Put the chocolate in the top pan of a double boiler set over but not touching simmering water in the bottom pan. Stir until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Let cool to room temperature.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, combine the confectioners' sugar, butter, the 6 Tbs. milk, the vanilla and salt and beat on low speed until combined, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Increase the speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes, then reduce the speed to low. Add the chocolate and beat until combined, then increase the speed to medium and beat for 1 minute more.

If the frosting is dry, add more milk, 1 tsp. at a time, until it is creamy but still holds peaks. Makes about 4 1/2 cups.

Decoration :

Fill the cake layers with chocolate buttercream, and then frost it with a thin layer of buttercream . Place the cake in the fridge for 15 minutes to set
Place the remaining chocolate buttercream on a piping bag fitted with a medium sized round tip (#12)
Create a row of dots (vertical). Using a spatula, spread every dot to the right, in one motion . Clean the spatula between every swipe
Once you have spread one row of dots, add another row of dots and repeat the pattern until the whole cake is covered with “petals”.