My Gramma's Cake

I have childhood memories of this cake, because my aunt used to make it a lot. It is a recipe of her mother/my grandma. I am so glad that on one of my visits home I went looking for it in my moms handwritten recipe notebook. Since then I've made that cake maybe a hundred times.

It is probably one of the simplest cake recipes there is and one of the most yummiest also. It is pretty quick and has very simple ingredients and you can vary it easily, too. Sounds pretty amazing, huh? It is, trust me.

That's what you need:
3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 tablespoons of oil
fruit (either something like 4 fresh peeled sliced apples, pears, bananas or a can of cherries or whatever other fruit you like or have at home)
optional: nuts or chocolate chips
some butter and vanilla sugar

preheat oven to 160°C/320F
pour out cherries into a strainer or peel and cut fruit

mix the eggs and the sugar

combine flour and baking powder, add to the eggs and sugar
last thing add oil

pour the mix into a greased baking pan

spread fruit on the dough. it should sink in slightly (if you want to add chocolate chips or nuts go for it! my favorite combos are banana/chocolate chip or cherry chocolate chip)

bake for 45 min 160°C/320F

when the cake is still hot put some butter on top and sprinkle vanilla sugar over the cake

and now enjoy a piece! it is very soft and fluffy and sweet!

Rain

It is May and we still have rain here in Israel. This is amazing since we went through years of drought and in the beginning of the winter it didn't look like we'd get that much rain this year... I still have some shots I took back in March that I wanted to share. Baby Cookie loved to look out and watch the rain. Actually that's how we got over the rainy days - looking out the window. Here is what we see:

I Made It!

I finally finished the rag doll for my daughter! I almost had given up on that project not just once. One reason was my  cursed antique sewing machine, which I have a love-hate relationship with.  Anyways, this doll wasn't as easy as I thought... not the dolls fault. After my husband had seen it yet without hair or face, he just said it looks scary and frankly he was thinking that this doll was ugly. Sure with the slightly weird form of the head it wasn't Miss Rag Doll who would win a beauty contest, but still... this comment discouraged me from finishing it. But believe it or not, when my baby girl saw the unfinished "ugly" doll, she just loved and hugged it. That was motivation enough to keep working on it. One month of procrastination later I finally made it! And here it is:

I used to have one of these when I was a little girl. My aunt had made it. I don't have a picture, but I do remember!



Look at all that hair. I actually added by hand EVERY SINGLE HAIR fixed with a knot. But that was a good plan, because it made the hair look so full and nice and I could cover up the seams that fixed the weird head into a "normal" head...


Isn't she cute?



By the way - the skirt is a doll size version of the simple gathered skirt from Dana.

Yummy Colors!

Middle Eastern cooking is pretty colorful in general and I am regularly inspired by the variety of fresh veggies and fruits that are all growing here in Israel (yep, we almost don't import any food!)

My latest favorite is baked vegetables. It couldn't be easier to cook a bunch of veggies for many guests - and we had plenty guests for the Passover holidays and Shabbat dinners lately.

How to do it? Just peel/clean/cut up any vegetables you like into smaller chunks (the bigger the chunks the longer the baking). Brush with olive oil, spread some herbs - I usually only use fresh thyme, parsley and rosemary and bake for 40 minutes at 250°C/480 F.

It works with almost anything. Potato, sweet potato, cauliflower, zucchini, carrots, peppers, eggplant, broccoli, purple onion - whatever you like. You can add also some halomi cheese on top for the last 15 minutes of baking.

Here some yummy colors. Enjoy!