Lemon Berry Birthday Cake

My mom's birthday close to Christmas, and last year she had a special request for us - she wanted to celebrate her birthday during the summer with a super awesome family backpacking trip.

First thought through my head: Fun!
Second thought: How do I bring a cake on a backpacking trip?

Italian Easter Bread (Daring Bakers' Challenge)

What is that in the middle of the bread? It's a dyed Easter egg! This month's Daring Bakers' Challenge was Easter bread. Many of them featured whole eggs worked into the bread. I liked how this Italian version looks like an egg in a cozy bread nest.

The April Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den . She challenged us to Spring into our kitchens and make Easter breads reflecting cultures around the world.

Lemon Almond Spring Cake

Spring weather in Seattle can be a bit capricious. Several sunny days will raise my hopes that summer is finally on its way - but then two weeks of grey drizzle will drown those hopes as I realize that it's still at least two months before summer is really here. My response to one such dreary day was to make this sping-y cake - even though the flowery sunny cake and the dismal rainy spring weather could not be more different.

Baumkuchen (Daring Bakers' Challenge)

I got very excited when I saw January's Daring Bakers' Challenge. So excited, in fact, that I promptly dropped the rest of my plans for the weekend, marched to the grocery store to buy almonds, and began baking. This month's challenge was baumkuchen - a traditional cake throughout Europe that has also become very popular in Japan. The name translates to "tree cake" in German. Usually, the cake is ring-shaped, so the layers look like tree rings. Unfortunately, getting this ring-shaped layering requires some specialized equipment, so my baumkuchen has horizontal layers.

The January 2014 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Francijn of "Koken in de Brouwerij". She challenged us all to bake layered cakes in the tradition of Baumkuchen (tree cake) and Schichttorte (layered cake).