Three Years with Ellebug, or The Happy Hufflepuff

I went to nine schools throughout my academic career, moved houses 13 times, I work at one of the Big 4 accounting firms as a management consultant (which, besides having an incredibly high employee turnover, the nature of our jobs is that we do short term projects). Permanence is not a concept I am familiar with. So to be celebrating my third year of baking and writing this blog is kind of a B.F.D.

The past three years have seen quite a lot of changes in my life, my baking, and my work. I like to think I've grown and that writing here has helped me grow up and get to know myself a bit more... Imagine that, internalising through broadcasting my thoughts and other stuff out there. As a result of Ellebug (or The Happy Hufflepuff as we began so humbly three years ago), the work I've been doing, and the people I've met and become close to, I've built a strong appreciation for the art of reflection in the course of self discovery. I still have a long way to go, but it's nice to have these handy tricks and tools to help me cope with feelings of stress and the occasional unprovoked discontentment that many of my fellow Gen Ys suffer from.

Right now, where I am... there are a few big decisions that I will have to make over the next year, sort of the big ones to take me through the last few years of my twenties. Hard to believe when I started this thing that I was in a different age bracket. Goshdarnit.

Okay, enough wallowing and vague sharing, let's get down to business to defeat the Huns. I saw this recipe in my favourite food magazine, Delicious UK last year and knew that it would be THE cake I'm baking for my three year blog anniversary. Eric Lanlard's epic celebration chocolate cake may have a longer list of ingredients than I usually prefer, but ooooh baby, was this cake worth it! I'm definitely going to be making this cake again, though in future I may substitute the butter icing filling with something more tangy. This cake was also the perfect one to go with cos it showcases my three favourite things: chocolate, ganache frosting, and berries.

And to make it extra special, I used only the best Lindt dark chocolate (75% single source) for the cake, the butter icing, and the chocolate ganache. It's ok to splurge every now and then.

Blackberry Lindt Cake (Eric Lanlard's Chocolate Celebration Cake)
For the cake:

• 350g unsalted butter, softened
• 350g golden caster sugar
• 50ml black treacle
• 8 large free-range eggs
• 50g dark chocolate (at least 70 per cent cocoa solids), melted
• 1 tbsp chocolate extract 
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp coffee extract
• 300g self-raising flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 50g ground almonds
• Blackberries to decorate (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/fan and line and grease 1 6" deep round baking pan and 1 8" deep round baking pan
2. Combine the flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder in a medium bowl and set aside
3. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light, then add the treacle and continue to beat gently 
4. Beat the eggs in one at a time, until light and fluffy then slowly add the melted chocolate
5. Add the chocolate, vanilla and coffee extracts
6. Add the flour until thoroughly combined then fold in the ground almonds with a rubber spatula
7. Divide the batter between the two baking pans, filling each to roughly 3/4 up the pans
8. Bake for 55 minutes for the 6" cake, and 1 hour 15 minutes for the 8" cake, or until a skewer inserted at an angle comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow the cakes to cool for 10 minutes in the pans, then turn them upside down onto a wire rack to cool completely

For the butter icing:

• 125g unsalted butter, softened
• 200g icing sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp chocolate extract
• 30g dark chocolate (70 per cent cocoa solids), melted
• 2 tbsp whipping cream

Whisk the butter and icing sugar until mixed, then add the extracts and dark chocolate. Continue to whisk until combined, then beat in the whipping cream. Pop the bowl into the fridge to allow it to solidify slightly while the cakes cool, but be sure to take it out before you fill the cakes to let it soften.

For the ganache:

• 250g single cream
• 2 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
• 2 tbsp light corn syrup
• 250g dark chocolate (70 per cent cocoa solids), melted
• 25g unsalted butter, softened

1. Heat the cream in a saucepan over a low heat, then add the vanilla and light corn syrup and stir gently with a spatula until mixed
2. Chop the chocolate and place in a medium sized heatproof bowl, pour the heated cream over the chocolate and let it sit for a few seconds before stirring with a spatula to melt it down. If necessary, put the bowl in the microwave for 20 seconds to reheat 
3. Stir in the butter, pop the bowl into the fridge to chill slightly before decorating

Assembling the cake:

Slice both cakes into three layers using a long serrated knife, then top each layer with the butter icing. Once all six layers are stacked, cover with ganache frosting in a happily haphazard manner. Top with fresh blackberries, or raspberries, or strawberries, or chocolate curls, or really anything you like. Enjoy with a cup of coffee. 

Also, you may have noticed that the look of the site has changed a little bit. In conjunction with my three-year anniversary, I've decided to give Ellebug a little treat! The new logo is care of the brilliant Zurisha over at Tinytype: Propfolio. Please go check out her stuff, order from her, just go talk to her. She's lovely! Thanks so much, Sha, I'm completely smitten by the little ladybug B and the whole thing! So cute! So terribly, terribly cute!

On a different note, is it smitten with, or smitten by? Couldn't find a conclusive answer to this, and now I am legitimately worried I may have been making a mistake my whole life and will continue to make this mistake if I don't find out!

Lemony Rainbow Cake

Everyone and their mother is either baking or ordering a Rainbow Cake these days. It's cute, I admit I gasped the first time I saw that picture on Whisk Kid's blog, and then I'm quite sure I was throwing up rainbows when Sweetapolita posted her Rainbow Doodle cake up. My friends Soraya, Pri and I even went around to an obscure bakery in Bangsar to check out their rainbow cake!

It was delicious... but disappointing. It was more of a tie-dye cake than a rainbow cake.

But when my cousin texted me last week to say that her daughter had especially requested for "Auntie Nabiya" to bake her a rainbow cake for her birthday... I jumped at the chance. I may not ever want a rainbow cake for myself, so this was my first opportunity to try out the colours without having to deal with the excess lying around in my fridge because nobody in my household wants to eat that much colouring on a normal day.

Also, how can I say no when she calls me Auntie Nabiya so sweetly? Darn these little girls and boys, they know exactly how to play their cards with me. It doesn't take much, really, I'm a sucker for big eyes and apple cheeks.

So this particular niece of mine, or second cousin once removed, turns eight today! Eight? I can't quite believe how much she, and the other cousins, have grown up so much. I keep thinking that they're all still five or six, and then they turn around and give me this condescending look, followed by an, "I'm *insert some ridiculously high number here* years old, you know?"

I'm getting old. LOL. Let's just get on with the rainbow cake, shall we?

Rainbow Cake

adapted from Whisk Kid's recipe

• 250g butter, room temperature
• 425g caster sugar
• 5 large eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 425g all purpose flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cup milk
• Food colouring gel: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and butter and line your 9"inch springform baking tins with parchment. Use as many as you have, I only have 2 so had to bake my layers in three batches
2. In a medium bowl sift the flour, baking powder and salt, then set aside
3. In the large bowl of your mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
4. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until incorporated
5. Then add 1/3 of the flour mixture, beat until just combined, add half of the milk, beat again, and keep doing this until you finish off with the last of the flour
6. Split the batter evenly into six bowls (roughly 1 cup per bowl by my count) and add the colouring until you achieve the shade you want the layers to take on
7. Bake each layer for 15 minutes, or until a skewer poked through comes out clean. Change the parchment paper after every layer if you're reusing the tins
8. Allow to cool in the pan for a few minutes before you run a butter knife around the edge of the cake then pop them onto the cooling tray. Once they've cooled completely, wrap them in cling wrap and pop them in the freezer to firm up before you even them out. I left mine in overnight as I baked the layers around 2 am
9. When ready to assemble, take the layers out of the freezer and allow them to come down to room temp

First slice is the deepest... oh man, you have no idea how relieved I was at this point!

Lemony Swiss Meringue Buttercream

• 7 egg whites
• 325g caster sugar
• 360g butter, softened
• 2 tsp lemon extract

1. Cook the egg whites and sugar over a bain-marie, whisking gently until the sugar is completely dissolved
2. Then transfer the mixture into your completely grease-free mixing bowl and whisk for 5-8 minutes, or until the bowl has cooled to room temperature, and soft peaks have formed in the meringue
3. This hurts, but next you throw in the butter, a tbsp at a time and allow it to mix and curdle into the meringue
4. Keep whisking until all the butter is added, then switch to a paddle attachment, add the lemon extract and beat until smooth

More cousins!

Here's another one of the birthday girl being all cute and camera shy

The cake was a huge hit with the 8-25 year old crowd gathered at my niece's birthday party, and I absolutely LOVE how the layers turned out so clean! I was terrified I'd end up with crumbly, uneven layers. But that moment of truth when you cut into a rainbow cake is definitely a moment you'll never forget.

Happy birthday, Double Love,
x Aunty Nabiya

Happy Birthday, Ellebug!

I thought long and hard about the cake I would bake to celebrate one year of blogging, scratched many designs and flavours, and last night... I finally just did it. Instead of doing fancy buttercream designs like I had intended to, I decided to keep it simple and homey, very much what I like to think I am.

Some may beg to differ, but I'll talk to you lot later.

Anyway, I'd just like to say thank you to everyone who reads this blog, to my family and friends who have supported me, and also helped me move the ever-growing stock of desserts off my refrigerator shelves. I love you all. This past year has been so special for me; I found something I actually really love doing, a great combination of writing and baking, and it's just helped me so much.

I first started baking intensely after my first actual heartbreak, and I started blogging about baking after my second. I never realized until this past year how important it is to just take time for myself, to get to know who I am, to listen to how I feel and think about things; just quality time with myself, you know?

I'm in this place right now where I'm so happy with who I am and enjoying the fact that I've given up pretending to be somebody everyone else thinks I am or should be, and I have Ellebug, or The Happy Hufflepuff (hehe), to thank for it.

So here's to a year of baking, and hopefully, many more to come!

Isn't the Ellebug Cake the cutest thing? ;)