So I'm celebrating my 3 year Blog Birthday this month!! Woohoo!! It's kinda hard to believe it's been 3 years already but as I look back at all 189 posts from February 2010 it surely has been 3 years. Crazy!
I was going to do a fancy birthday cake but decided I'm totally not feeling too fancy these days and I'm all about comfort and simplicity this year-but definitely not plain and boring, it still needs to be fun!
If you read the blog you probably know I have a thing for colors. I love swirled colors, contrasting colors, or rainbow colors, and I really love the look of marbled loaf cakes. They may not be the fanciest of cakes, but the colors always look so pretty swirled together and the flavor is usually so cakey and buttery and totally what I'd pick for a dessert. And it doesn't even have icing on it (I know sacrilege!) but it really doesn't need it with all the butter loaded inside.
I also have a thing for matcha too and have used it a few times like here and here and here. Firstly, it's green (one of my fav colors) and secondly, it's green tea flavored (another fav of mine!).
When I saw this matcha and chocolate marbled loaf cake over at Pass the Sushi, I knew it was a definite pin for me and it has been on my to do list for ages.
I knew I wanted to do 3 colors for this so I did 1 and 1/2 times the recipe. The colors by no coincidence match the blog colors! Once you have the batter mixed up, separate into 3 bowls (I eye-balled it to try to get it even into 3 bowls), then add the cocoa powder to 1, green tea matcha powder to the 2nd bowl, and the last I left plan but tinted the batter just slightly pink with food gel).
To swirl, add the green tea batter first (use whatever flavor you want more prominent as this is kinda the base of the loaf), then add some chocolate batter and pink batter, then more green. I just plopped some in and then using a butter knife, swirled the batters together. Don't over swirl because you can start mixing the colors too much and you lose the nice big marble'y look you want (and you can get a yucky brown color for your loaf).
The marbled loaf came out great BUT I knew I wanted to fancy it up a bit too, since it is for a birthday after all. After cutting a slice and singing happy birthday to the blog, I just cut the rest into slices and used a heart shaped small cookie cutter to cut some cute little hearts out.
Aren't they super cute??! And don't worry the scraps most definitely did not go to waste.
I probably could have eaten the entire batch, but decided to bring them along for others to enjoy too and just plopped them into some mini cupcake liners.
A cool tri-colored marbled loaf AND marbled mini heart cakes? Yep that's totally me!
Again happy blog birthday to me! It's been so fun coming up with fun stuff to share over these past 3 years. I had been doing it mainly for my kids and family and friends and it still amazes me that there are so many of you that come back to visit, to encourage me and to ask questions or share your warm thoughts and feedback. I've also made some great friends over these years that I've never met before in real life-but really are friends. The blogging community is such a amazing group of people. And finally I do this for me and it's one part of my life that is all mine. I work full-time, and have a great husband and 3 amazing kids but as with a lot of us, life is hectic and nuts at times and the responsibilities are always competing. It's been so therapeutic to have something that I do just for me. So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for continuing swing by this part of the blogosphere every so often. I truly appreciate it.
Thank you for indulging the "blog birthday" post (which is actually more fun than my real birthday!) and I certainly do hope life is good and that you have an awesome weekend!
Happy Blogiversary/Birthday!!! And these mini heart shaped cakes are gorgeous! Love the color and love how they are bitesized :)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Michelle!
DeleteHappy Blogiversary! Wow, 3 years? You rock. :) I love these cakes too, especially how you cut them in hearts. :)
ReplyDeleteYeah they came out cure!
DeleteHappy blog-iversary!! :) Very pretty cake :)
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot! It came put neat with all the colors!
DeleteThose turned out really cute! I love pink & green anything. :)
ReplyDeleteHow cute your little hearts are:) Love the marbled look!
ReplyDeleteHappy Blogiversary! 3 years is GREAT! Now you're a senior!
ReplyDeleteSo pretty. I did the same thing with some of my pound cake. Post tomorrow night. Thanks for sharing these on Two Cup Tuesday! I look forward to seeing you there on Monday Night!
Darling. Love the colors!
ReplyDeleteI have a weekend Link party if you'd care to join:
http://www.bobijensen.com