Chocolate Honey Cake

I've been driving in the Fast Lane the past couple of weeks. Literally, I mean just that. After helping with Tina's bridal shower, I've been sent to Marlborough, MA twice for work and have driving back and forth on the MassPike in the Fast Lane. Amidst the work trips, throw in helping coordinate Tina and David's wedding, gathering over wine and cheese, and hosting friends, and you've got busy me. I love doing all of it, so I wouldn't have it any other way.

In my previous post, I said I would go into more detail about the different desserts I made for Tina's bridal shower, so I will stay true to my word. The bridal shower had a prominent theme and even the dessert fell in line. If you were tasked with finding yellow, white, and circle desserts, what would you come up with? Well, here's what we had at the bridal shower:
























Lemon and vanilla macarons from Ladurée. If you bring these back from Paris or elsewhere, just keep them in an airtight container in the freezer, and they'll last for weeks.

























"Yellow and White" cookies, a version of the Black and White cookie, a recipe I tried a while back.

























Mini profiteroles with fresh whipped cream. I used the same choux recipe as my matcha profiteroles.

























Mini dan ta, or Chinese egg tarts. I'll save this recipe for my next post.

























A polka dot chocolate honey cake. "This isn't yellow!" you may say, but just hush. I could have made a yellow fruit tart, but I felt the need to vary the flavors. I knew Tina loves honey and chocolate, so it still fit in terms of her favorite things. Drizzling honey over the cake while warm would increase the amount of moisture in this cake, but to better fit the theme, I wanted circles of powdered sugar to top the cake. I had Cheryl make a template out of parchment paper with a circle paper cutter. It was tricky keeping the parchment paper steady, but it worked. The cake itself was easy to bake and was really moist; join me in welcoming a great addition to my list of cake recipes.


Honey Chocolate Cake
adapted from Super Food Ideas, April 2005

Ingredients:
2/3 cup butter
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup honey
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoons baking power
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup powdered sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and sift cocoa powder covering a 9-inch round cake pan.
2. In a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together. Slowly add in eggs, one at a time. Add in honey, and beat well.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.
4. Whisk together milk and vanilla in a small bowl.
5. Add flour mixture to butter mixture, then add in milk mixture. Alternatively add in until well mixed.
6. Pour into greased pan and bake at for 20-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.
7. Let cake cool in pan for 5-10 minutes. Invert cake and sift powdered sugar on top of the cake, using any desired template.

Tina's Bridal Shower

Last month, I had the privilege of helping out with a former roommate's bridal shower. When the maid of honor (Tina's sister) asked me if I'd like to make some dessert for the shower, I was honored to be asked and immediately said yes!

I've had many roommates in the past, and Tina is one of my favorites. Is she even better than my current one? Hmmm.. that's a tough call. She cooked for me, sometimes cleaned up after me, was a great workout buddy, gave me tennis lessons, got me into baseball, and taught me a great deal about home style Taiwanese food. To bake for her bridal shower was my way of showing appreciation for her friendship and presence in my life.





































































Can you tell the bridal shower had a theme? Well it did, and the theme was Tina's favorite things: the color yellow, the color white, and polka-dots. Cheryl did all the decorations and crafted together paper pom-poms, yarn pom-poms, paper banners, balloon banners, and strew paper circle cut-outs all around the apartment. She really transformed David's apartment into a ray of sunlight. Update: Not that it wasn't already wonderfully decorated by the groom..





















































How awesome is it that guests brought presents wrapped in the same style as the decorations? We made no kind of announcement or demands for this; Tina's friends simply know what she likes.

























Kelly, the maid of honor, took care of the food, and she prepared as many yellow foods as she could think of. We had tamago sushi, assorted cheese and crackers, corn salsa on tortilla chips, deviled eggs, a yellow vegetable platter, chicken salad sandwiches, and sweet potato fries. We had quite the assortment of food, and it looked great altogether.




































In addition to this honey chocolate polka-dot cake, I made a few other desserts in the same theme, and I even brought back lemon and vanilla macarons from Ladurée in Paris. I'll be sure to write more about the desserts in future posts, so check back next week!




































Even more polka-dots! This is the only present picture I'm going to post. But let me say we certainly saw more white, yellow, and polka-dots among the presents.
























The bridesmaids sent us home with these adorable pots of honey as shower favors. They skillfully tied various Burt's Bees items to each honey pot with cute yellow yarn. I heard it was a great feat, so job well done, ladies.




































And here the bride is with her lovely bouquet for the wedding rehearsal. Cheryl came prepared with her glue gun and craft supplies and made this fabulous gift wrap bouquet that could be fit for the actual wedding.

I can't believe Tina will be marrying her fiancé David in just one week! The bridal shower was so bright and cheery, and I hope their wedding will be filled with even more sunshine. Congratulations, you two!