Birthday cake in the making :-)

So decision made, and because any recipe is just a suggestion I decided to mix and match.

My cake is going to be 2 tier thingy, bottom made of chocolate sponge and top of a poppy seed one. Where I came from poppy seed cakes are essentials for Christmas and Easter, so given my birthday is just a week from Easter - why not. Both cakes will be layered with white chocolate ganache and blackcurrant jam made by my friend. And maybe some of my raspberry curd (homemade of course).
So chocolate sponge:
6 eggs (separated)
150g caster sugar
115g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
40g melted butter (cooled)
pinch of soda bicarb
Vanilla (paste, extract or whatever you want)
All ingredients must be in a room temperature (not straight from the fridge- eggs, or boiling hot- butter).
Whip the egg whites till stiff, in separate bowl whip the yolks with sugar till creamy and light in colour, add melted butter top yolks and keep mixing. Add yolks with butter to whites and gently mix, add flour, cocoa and soda. Mix until smooth but still with lots of air. Prepare the baking tin, line it with paper or parchment. Put the mixture in a tin and bake @180C (gas mark 5) for about 30 min (or till stick comes dry). Then cut it into 3 layers. Et Voila.

Poppy seed sponge
5 eggs (separated)
150g caster sugar
2 tbs ground almonds
120g fine sponge flour
2 tbs corn or potato flour
1 tbs of baking powder (I give 1 heaped tsp of soda)
200g dry poppy seeds (blue ones)

Whip the whites till stiff, add the caster sugar, make sure its properly mixed. Add the egg yolks, keep mixing. Sieve the flours, powder and almonds, add poppy seeds, mix gently not to knock out the air from egg whites. Put in a baking tin (lined again) and bake for 45 min (or till stick comes dry) @180C (gas mark 5). When baked cut it into 3 layers again.

Then, spread jam on the chocolate cake, then put cream on it, and next layer.

And again, and again until you use all the cake layers, or cream, or it will get too high to fit in your fridge. Then spread cream on the top layer, decorate it the way you want and can. Enjoy.

ps. Poppy seed cake can be very dry,so it would do it good if you moisten it with alcohol of some sort (brandy is good) or lemon juice mixed with water and maybe some syrup.

pss. My ganache is definitely my take on recipe, as everywhere they say that you should melt chocolate in cream and the whip it when cool, with white chocolate it was always dieseaster. So I whip the cream until firm then add melted chocolate. At least it keeps its shape.

Today

Today I meant to write about looking for inspiration for my spring house makeover, but then I learned about passing of someone who was and wasn't a member of my family. Was, because as a partner of my brothers for 19 years she was a stable point on the family landscape. Wasn't because of very difficult relationship with our parents we never got close.And now we never will. Still sudden death touched my family, so I wanted to write couple words about her as I remember her. And thank her for being this huge part in my brothers life. Dalia was his rock, something I never understood until I met my husband. I never appreciated how dependent people can be from each other. When we first met, I was a difficult teen with many issues, they were adults  (my brother being 6 years older than me and Dalia was a bit older than him) so we didn't have much in common, but I still remember that my first set of artist pastels I got from her. Then after 2 years this huge rift in our family happened (mainly out of our parents fault, never being able to understand how their children can be so much different that  them), and by the time I became who I am as a adult whole relation was so damaged, that there was no trust. And it is something I will always regret.
Something telling about our family is that, I learned about Dalias passing form my brothers blog, not from him calling anyone he is related to. We spoke today and I really feel for him, but I am completely powerless to help him in anyway.
So I am typing away trying to deal with my own emotions, as now from perspective of my marriage, I know what they meant for each other. And don't even want to imagine how I would feel in his place.
Anyway, all I want to say is thank you to Dalia, for being who she was for Jacek. And to my brother that the pain won't go away but I hope you can live with it. For sake of doing things you both started and planned. I like to think she would like you to stick to it.