This cake resembles this strawberry and cream cake I made some time ago. Maybe a simple version. But both cakes will make you happy by only looking at them.

Ingredients (one 9-inch cake):

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease two 9-inch cake pans, line the pan bottoms with parchment paper and grease the paper. Set aside.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

With a hand mixer, beat the butter until creamy and smooth. Gradually add sugar, beating continuously until light and fluffy (around 5 minutes).

Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. The batter may look curdled, but it will come together after you add the flour. Add vanilla and beat until incorporated.

Add the flour mixture and mix just until incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared pans evenly and smooth the top.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the cakes are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

To assemble the cake, place one cake layer on your serving plate and spread with the jam. Place strawberry halves along the edge of the cake, and scattered the chopped strawberries in the centre. Gently spread the whipped cream on top. Top with another cake layer.

Serve it within an hour.

An untameable lion that looks this lovable? And a sweet chubby strawberry that I would gobble in one bite?

Gene, I can’t explain you.

When it came to think about what to make for my husband’s birthday — A BIRTHDAY CAKE FOR MY HUSBAND, not any other cake which I would make for family dinner or stuff, I tried to incorporate some of his favorite food. Except he eats everything.

Somehow Neapolitan ice cream came to my mind. He told me he used to love this when he’s a kid. And I couldn’t be happier to bring back his childhood memory.

I didn’t try to perfect the Neapolitan stripe on the side of the cake. The rustic effect kind of made a canvas painting.

Ingredients (9-inch 3-layered cake):

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease three 9-inch round cake pans, and line the bottoms with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In another bowl, whisk the boiling water and cocoa powder until smooth.

Beat butter and sugar together on medium speed in a bowl of a standing mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in buttermilk and vanilla extract.

Reduce the speed to low and beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture, followed by half of the chocolate mixture. Repeat with another 1/3 of the flour mixture and the remaining chocolate mixture. Beat in the remaining flour mixture until just incorporated.

Divide the batter and pour into the prepared pans, smoothing the surface with a spatula. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Place the cakes (in the pans) on a wire rack to cool. Then invert the cakes onto a greased rack.  Cool completely before frosting.

To prepare the buttercream, put sugar and egg whites in a mixing bowl over a pot of simmering water. Use an electric hand mixer to beat constantly until the sugar has completely dissolved and the egg whites are hot. Remove from heat.

With whisk attachment, continue whipping the mixture in a standing mixer until thick, glossy, and cool.

Switch over to paddle attachment. While mixing on medium speed, continuously add softened butter in chunks until incorporated, and mix until it has reached a silky smooth texture. If curdles, keep mixing and it will come back to smooth.  Add vanilla and salt, mix well.

Equally split buttercream into 3 portions. Mix one of the portions with melted chocolate, and another portion with strawberry puree until incorporated and colors are even.

To assemble the cake, place one cake layer on the serving plate and spread with chocolate buttercream. Place another cake layer on top, and gently press down a little bit. Spread with vanilla buttercream. Place the last layer of cake on top. Gently press down and smear the strawberry buttercream on top.

Carefully smear the side with the extra buttercream squeezed out between cake layers, and form the rustic stripes effect.

Cover and refrigerate the cake. Leave out in room temperature for at least an hour prior to serving.

I believe God has finally listened to my outcry about my constantly not-eating son, and gave me a constantly wanting-to-eat daughter.

Ethan, your desire to eat has never grown any bigger. We may have some occasional success, but most of the meal time is us fighting a grueling battle. And I think the word that you’ve heard from me the most in your life so far is SWALLOW, or OPEN, or a word starting with F that you haven’t heard but you could have probably felt it from my shivering lips. And that’s when I look out to your sister to calm myself — I simply feed her, which cannot be more effective. Maya, I’m sure you instinctively know that it comes with FOOD PRIVILEGE when you are over six months old. When we put food into our mouths we had better be prepared to share that food with you as you accost us with an open mouth, like a hungry baby bird. There is not one second you don’t want food. And your passion for it has grown remarkably over the past month.

It’s started with your never-ending bawls even after you are done with your own food. When you are eating almost every hour, be it a bottle of milk or a bowl of porridge, I’m pretty sure the portion that you had should be fine. So, I didn’t attempt to up the amount of your food, instead I gave you SNACK! The first time I put a piece of Cheerios on your highchair tray, the joy on your face told me that you’d found your long lost friend. Oh, the chunky, oaty, lovely friend! You leaned your body closer to the tray, reached your hand to grab that Cheerios and put it in your mouth. FLAWLESSLY DONE! I could only believe what I saw after I was convinced that you must have eaten a lot of Cheerios in your previous life. And a lot of other stuff, like this cake. I had a hard time figuring out why you would be drooling that much wanting to gobble that cake that you were not supposed to know it’s edible. When you realized that I was going to leave the cake on the kitchen counter, and not cutting you a piece, you barked in a shriek, “No No No No No, how dare you! Not getting me a piece?!”

The only exception was the two erratic days that you were suffering from teething. I had no idea what those four teeth could do to a perfectly calm baby like you — YOU DID NOT WANT TO EAT AT ALL! You shoved off every spoon and every bottle that we tried to put in your mouth. You were only drooling and moaning and being grouchy and more drooling. The only way we could calm you down was to stick our hands into your mouth hoping they wouldn’t come out missing a finger or two.

One summery evening after dinner, your father shared his strawberry popsicle with you. You licked all over that cool sweet treat with sheer delight, making JAAP JAAP sounds and lifting you hands wanting to grab the popsicle out of his hand. I know that your grandma is going to accuse me of feeding you something this COLD and this SWEET, because you are not supposed to eat anything below room temperature in your first ten years of life. Maybe it will turn you into a chubby butterball. But oh how I will love my cute little chubby butterball.

Ethan, your language skills have taken another leap lately. And you’ve started to communicate with us in complete sentences. You begin every day by telling us the things in your mind — I want brush teeth, I don’t want underwear, no mommy pee pee, I want Thomas, park, shopping bag, backyard, NO TOAST! I DON’T WANT YOGURT! NO BREAKFAST!!! It’s always before I’ve even brushed my teeth. For so many months of your life we struggled to understand what you wanted, what you were thinking, and now that you can communicate your needs, we often ask each other if it was really worth it to teach you this skill. One morning you woke up demanding a popsicle. “I want possicle. I want blueberry possicle, not mango possicle.” And I knew within days you would be asking me for a glass of whiskey, Chivas, not Crown Royal.

Then I told you we could have a popsicle after lunch or dinner, but not in the morning. Once I mentioned we should have breakfast in the morning, as usual, you went completely uninterested. You wandered around the kitchen playing with the alphabet magnets on the refrigerator. Suddenly you said, “Hey, mom?” with a look of concern on your face. I replied, “Yes?” wondering what could have possibly happened that could make you so serious.  You glanced over to my face to make sure I was paying attention, and you said, “So, I think we need a really special idea.” I wasn’t sure if your special idea was to have popsicle for breakfast. But seriously I was very close to get one for you from the freezer just because I wanted to do something to thank for the gift of language.

Ethan, just because you’ve started to master your ability of communication, it doesn’t mean you are any communicative! This month marks one of the many months that you are at the peak of throwing a whole bunch of crap around. There was not one single day you didn’t make a big deal of absolutely nothing. One evening last week, after a big protest of not wanting to go to bed, you made a huge fuss over the fact that your father didn’t let you have any more toothpaste as you had almost eaten the whole tube. For a whole ten minutes, you were stomping your feet and arms in anger, screaming deafeningly screams. Usually it would be your father who lost his cool over this kind of situation. This time, he gathered as  much strength as he could to remain calm. IT WAS ME. I got to the end of the day filled with complaints about food, the way you play with puzzle, the music in the car, the way Maya touches you, I was like, “Really? Haven’t you had enough? Why you have to make everything so hard?” My patience went paper thin. I completely lost it, rushed into the bathroom, grabbed you and took you out to the sundeck, closed the door and told you to stop crying cause I AM SERIOUSLY SICK OF IT! Crying even harder, you kept banging the door begging me to let you in. There. A totally irrational scene which I didn’t even realize until now. After a couple minutes, I let you in, and tried to make sure that the whole punishment was working. I made you say, “Ethan, no more crying.” At first, you glued your lips so tight that even air wouldn’t be able to go in. Then you mumbled some “Ya Yum” to yourself with your shivering lips as I threatened putting you out again.

Say “Ethan, no more crying.”

Ya Yum……

SAY IT!

Ya Yum……

You want to stay outside, Ethan?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Then Say It!

Ya Yum……

GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My nostrils started to blow fire. Standing there not knowing how to intervene in this arduous battle between the two most stubborn creatures in the planet, your father was only able to sigh about the fact that he’s going to face this for the rest of his life. I walked close to the door sending an ultimatum, not until I was about to touch the door knob, you roared NO MORE CRYING. I am sure you were swallowing blood from tongue biting. No proof could possibly be more powerful than DNA that you were born from my egg.

Over a chat with a friend in Hong Kong, she said to me that when I write about parenthood, it sounds like I am trying to convince myself that everything will be fine. And I told her I thought that’s what all parents did to keep themselves alive, cause this new way of life is so freaking hard. However, I’ve realized that in fact it is not too hard to tell myself things will be better, because THEY ARE BETTER! Just today, you both look more charming. Ethan, the thing you say is more outrageous and hilarious. Maya, the giggle you make is more heart-melting. And that’s what keeps me feeling better. Whenever I talk about you to other people, I always feel inadequate to communicate how lucky I am to know you, because you are the most amazing persons I have ever known.

And every time when I look back the last time that I lost my patience with you, I want to punch myself.

No-noise-making baking

I’ve started to try to avoid the sound of my hair drifts to the floor, cause I don’t want to take any risk waking her up.

Ingredients (16 squares):

Directions:

Preheat over to 325F. Grease and line an 8-inch square baking tin.

Melt the butter and dark chocolate together in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. When it is smooth and shiny, remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Add sugar and vanilla extract, mixing well with a spatula. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between additions.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder and salt together. Fold the flour mixture in the chocolate mixture with a spatula.

Gently fold in dried cranberries.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the top, pushing the batter into the corners of the pan. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes up with some moist crumbs, but no wet batter.

Cut into squares and serve.

Yet, it doesn’t mean you can do anything you want, such as making dessert. The strategy for this is not to use any noise-making blender or mixer. This crumble is a pleasantly simple dessert which requires no tools but your hands and some mixing bowls.

Yes, I’m a mother of two. I’m full of wisdom.

Ingredients (serves 4):

Directions:

Preheat over to 375F. Grease a 8-inch baking dish.

To make the topping, mix 1 1/2 cups flour, white sugar, brown sugar, baking powder and salt together in a bowl. Stir in the melted butter, then press the topping together with your hands to form small clumps. Put the topping in the freezer while you assemble the filling.

To make the filling, toss the strawberries, lemon zest, lemon juice and 2 tablespoons flour together in another bowl. Transfer the filling to the prepared pan and spread it out evenly.

Press the crumble evenly over the fruit, then bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until the crumble is lightly golden and the filling is bubbling up. Cool for about 20 minutes before serving.

Top with vanilla ice cream or sweetened whipped cream.

Then I came across with this recipe which looks very simple to come up with a soft sponge cake. I gave it a try, and it worked perfectly. Too bad I can’t tell what went wrong with my previous trials, probably because I wasn’t gentle enough to handle the cake batter, especially while folding in the egg whites. So I guess the key is BE GENTLE.

Ingredients (12-inch long roulade):

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 12 x 15 inch baking pan with parchment paper. Grease it and flour it lightly.

Add 1 cup of sugar to the bowl with the egg yolks. Whisk with hand mixer until pale yellow and fluffy.

Add the flour, and mix briefly until incorporated.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold them in gently to the egg yolk mixture.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Spread the batter evenly.

Bake for 17 minutes or until golden brown.

While the cake is baking. Place a clean dish towel on your working surface. Then put a piece of parchment paper over the towel and sprinkle it with a little of confectioner’s sugar.

Immediately upon removing the cake from the oven, invert it onto the towel and the paper you have prepared. So now you have the dish towel and the paper underneath the cake and there’s also a piece of paper on top of the cake.

Remove the top paper carefully. Then roll the cake while it’s still hot. Let it cool.

Beat the cream until soft peaks form, then add the remaining 4 tablespoons of sugar and continue beating until firm.

When the cake is completely cool, unroll the cake and spread with strawberry jam. Top it with cream.

Re-roll the cake. Sprinkle with some more sugar if you want. Slice it and serve.

I really wish I could come up with an explanation. However, besides coincidence, I can’t think of any reason why I bake with strawberry AGAIN!!!

Probably because Ethan was crazy picking strawberries and put them right in his mouth at my mom-in-law’s back yard. And all he wants to eat now is strawberry. Usually I act real quick responding his interest to eat, because it won’t last.

Ingredients (24 mini muffins):