Marbled Cake / Tiger Cake

Grrrr! Hello friends, this week I will show you a recipe for marbled cake, or as I have always called it, Tiger cake :) This classic cake is basically 1/3 chocolate batter and 2/3 vanilla flavoured batter, but you could of course use two other flavours if you want, I guess the variations can be unlimited :)

Marbled Cake / Tiger Cake Recipe
200 grams of butter or margarine
2 1/2 deciliter sugar
3 eggs
4 deciliter flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 deciliter milk

Flavours:
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespon vanilla sugar (or 1/2-1 lemon zest)

Put oven to 175 Celsius.
Grease and bread a baking pan size about 1 1/2 liter.
Stirr the margarine and the sugar white and smooth and add one egg at the time while continuing stirring.
Mix flour and baking powder and add to the egg mixture along with the milk little by little to avoid lumbs.
Put 1/3 of the batter in a bowl and add the cocoa.
Flavour the rest of the batter with vanilla suger or lemon zest.
Pour half of the vanilla batter into the baking pan, and then pour the coca batter on top. Finally add the last of the vanilla batter on top of the cocoa batter.
Use a fork and draw it around through all the layers a few times so the layers mix into each other.
Bake in the lower part of the oven for about one hour.

Have a great week folks!

Blue and White Summer Dress

Last Friday, the 19th of June, Sweden celebrated Midsummer's eve. For swedish people this holiday is almost as big as Christmas. We eat smorgasbord as lunch, which includes pickled herring, sour cream, potatoes, chives, eggs and crispbread. Later in the evening we barbecue and for dessert we eat cream cake with strawberries or strawberries with unwhipped cream or ice cream. During midday or early afternoon it is a tradition to gather loved ones, dress a maypole with flowers and leaves and then dance around it together with the children to violin music or accordion music.
We celebrated together with my husband's brother's family and for this occation I sewed this dress I will show you today!

The pattern is taken from BurdaStyle magazine no 6/2014. I wanted a dress with simple lines and few details and I liked the fact that it has two hidden pockets in the side seams. When I was finished I was a little unhappy with the neckline because I thought it was a bit too deep. When I leaned forward people would see more than I wanted to show so I sew the two front parts together were they crossed. However, that was not enough so I used a white tank top under so it covered as much as I wanted. Maybe I will add a white or blue patterned piece behind the two front pieces so I won't need a tank top in the future.

The fabric I used is cotton fabric with not much stretch. However, there is no need for much stretch because the zipper in the side seam is long enough to make it easy to get the dress on without trouble.
The fabric is called "Twelve Oaks" from the collection of Judie Rothermel for MARCUS Fabrics (see picture below) 

Betsy the Rainbow Cow

This weekend this lady is getting the spotlight on the blog! Let me present to you Betsy - the rainbow cow!
Just like all her friends she was once white with only black colored spots, but she felt in her heart that she was not one color - she was ALL colors! Her greatest dream was to have multicolored spots just like the rainbow. One day she found the hidden secret of the rainbow and her dream came true! Now all her friends call her "Rainbow-Betsy" and she is living the dream every day among flowers and grass. Go Betsy!

The technique I use is basically increase, decrease and stocking stitch for all parts of this cow. I do the pattern myself and from my own imagination. I think this is the perfect way for me to be creative and I can assure you that it will be many more little soft animal friends on this blog in the future! :)

Betsy is a real flower junkie and loves to relax in the grass enjoying the sunshine.

Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

What would be better than celebrating Saturday with baking carrot cupcakes?! Well, I didn't have a good answer to that question so I stepped into my kitchen with happy feet and started making some :)

Beacause I personally think that frosting that contains only icing sugar and butter is a bit too sweet for my taste, I wanted to try this frosting because I have heard cream cheese frosting is not as sweet. However, I found that this frosting also is a way too sweet for my taste so for future cupcake baking I will spread my wings and do some serious digging on the Internet to find a frosting that is very fresh, creamy and not so sweet. 

This recipe is originally from Leilas homepage but I will also give it in English here in this post - YAY!

 Carrot Cupcakes

3 eggs
270 grams of sugar
180 grams of flour
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 pinch of salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 teaspoons ground ginger
150 ml sunflower oil
450 grams grated carrots

Cream Cheese Frosting

65 grams of soft butter

300 grams of icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
100 grams of cream cheese 

1. Put the oven to 175 Celsius.
2. Beat the eggs and the sugar until pale and fluffy.
3. Mix the dry ingredients and turn into the egg mixture.
4. Stirr in the oil and carrots.
5. Put paper cases on a tin and pour in the mixture until the cases are two-thirds full.
6. Bake in the centre of the oven for 12–15 minutes. Leave to cool.
7. Make the frosting by mixing together the ingredients until creamy.
8. Spread the frosting on top of the cupcakes.

Drawing Rihanna

Sometimes I think it is relaxing to just sit down, listen to music and sketch. I particularly like finding a celebrity to sketch and then listen to the person's music while I am sketching him or her. For me it feels like I do a better sketch if I absorb the music while going down into the exact details of their faces.

Something that moves me every time I am sketching a portrait of a person is that a face contains so many shadows, lines and corners that I need to observe to make the face look like the original person. This time I tried to sketch Rihanna, and although I am very aware of it's not perfect I like the outcome :)

I used pencil hardness F to do all contours at first and then I used 4B and 5B to make the shadows. To even the edges between the shadows I used a stump. Finally to make sharp contours I used an oridinary mechanical pencil. The paper is ordinary sketching paper.