To celebrate my blogiversary with the Cafe au Lait Choc Cake and an Award

So I have made it, my 2nd year of blogging.  For the past few months, I have been trying to seek for other interests besides blogging.  But I find that blogging has become a part of my life, it is such an easy way to share recipes with my family and friends, and meeting like-minded people.  It is your comments that keep me going, it is your inspiring recipes that keep me logging in...so I'm still here to share what I cooked in my kitchen, what I feed my family and what makes me happy.  I may not be able to read and comment your posts all the time but I do enjoy it when I have the chance.  If you want to connect with me at facebook, please click a like at my page here.

I baked this cake for my daughter's birthday as she loves everything french.  It is a lovely cake for celebration and only if I have some cachous (little silver balls) could make this cake even more beautiful!  I hope you like it!

I received this award from Andrea at Get Your Feast On just before my blogiversary.  Andrea has the interests in cooking and fashion and she has combined both of these elements in her blog.  I started blogging when I stayed home to recover from illness, so every blogiversary also mean another year of good health to me.  When I received my first award, I feel the satisfaction of the hard work I've done.  Therefore, I decide to give this award to any blogger(s) that has not received an award yet.  Simply grab it, pass it on and follow the rules below if possible and enjoy blogging delicious food!

The rules are: 

• Thank the person who nominated you and link them back. 
• Share a little bit about why you started blogging.

• Copy and paste the award onto your blog. 

• Nominate up to 10 other bloggers you think are addictive enough to deserve the award.

Thanks again for your friendship to accompany my journey of cooking!

Cafe au Lait Choc Cake


1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup strong coffee (I use 2 teaspoons instant coffee powder mixed with 1 cup hot water)
2 1/4 cup cake flour
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence

For the coffee cream:
300ml thickened cream
icing sugar
1-2 teaspoons instant coffee powder mixed with 1 tbsp hot water

For the chocolate leaves and decoration:
white chocolate
dark chocolate
rose leave
rose petal
a rose

Method

1. Beat butter with sugar until creamy and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time and mix well. 
2. Add coffee to the butter mixture. Stir in sifted flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and vanilla essence.
3. Pour mixture into a paper lined 23cm round tin and bake 25-30 minutes at 180c.
4. Spilt cake into half, filled and decorate with coffee cream and chocolate leaves. Decorate the side of the cake with chocolate rose petals and topped the cake with a rose.
5. For the coffee cream, whip the cream till thicken then add in few tablespoon of icing sugar.  Then mix well with the coffee mixture.
6. For the chocolate leave and rose petal: melt chocolate in microwave at medium heat until smooth.  Use a paint brush to brush some chocolate onto the leaves or paint 1/2 of the rose petals.  Leave the chocolate to harden in the fridge if needed.  Then peel off the leaves and decorate as you wish. Don't need to peel for the rose petals.

Source: adopted and modified from the cookbook, "Great Cake" published by the Country Living.