Carrot cake

This is a guest post by Anna. She is my most active guest blogger. This is not her first recipe here. You can see her other guest posts in her page.

Usually Anna sends a picture of the whole cake to go with her recipe. This one however was so delicious that I was lucky to get a picture of one piece!

The highlight of this biscuit is the addition of the orange zest. The recipe is very simple, but the result is striking. The amount of dough that you get from the ingredients is enough to make a small cake (3 thin layers with the diameter about 18 cm (7 inches) or 2 layers with the diameter about 22-25 cm (8-9 inches) or or small baking tray of muffins.

Ingredients:

200 g (7 oz) of grated carrots

175 g (6 oz) of sugar

150 g (5,3 oz) of melted butter

175 g (6 oz) of flour

1 tsp. of baking powder

3 eggs

zest of one orange

Icing

:

400 g (14 oz) of sour cream

100 g (3,5 oz) of caster sugar

Instructions:

1. Mix carrots, sugar, melted butter, flour, baking powder, yolks and orange zest  in a large bowl with a spoon. 

2. Beat the egg whites and a couple pinches of salt with a mixer into a solid foam in another bowl.  Gently mix the dough. 

3. Heat oven to 350F. I baked 3 cake layers separately in 7" diameter tray. It took 25 minutes per each layer. I had one cooking tray though. You can also bake the whole cake in the same deep tray (it will take you 45-50 minutes) and then cut it into three layers. 

4. Mix the sour cream and the caster sugar to make the icing. Leave it to cool down in a fridge for ten minutes if it the mixture is too runny.

5. I love my biscuits impregnated with juices. This time I used freshly squeezed orange juice. It gave it an unusual taste.

6. Spread a few spoonfuls of orange juice and then the icing over each cake layer before you assemble the cake.

7. Try to take a picture of your cake before it is gone!

Beautiful nature

VanDusen botanical garden, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Jewellery masterpieces. Turquoise bracelet by Tommy Jackson

Tommy Jackson Rare Gem Grade Royston Turquoise Inlay Bracelet

Styles of Ebru art. Guest post by Katya Ryazanova

Katya Ryzanova is one of my featured guest bloggers. She has quite a few guest posts here. You can find a list of them here. Today she continues a story of ebru and shows what she and her kids have created!

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Let's talk about the ebru styles. There are surprisingly many of them!

All water drawings can be divided into two groups: the textures (abstract drawings and background drawings) and the pictures with an image (mostly flowers).

There is one more group that stands alone.  It is ebru with the words, that is the most complicated and time consuming.

Almost each kind of ebru kept the name of its creator. For example, Hatip ebru has been invented at the beginning of the 18th century by Hatip Mehmet Efendi, who was a preacher. He invented the ebru technique in which the paint is being dropped with a needle to the surface in a series of drops. Then a different color is dropped to the middle of the circles created by the first drop of paint to draw flowers without leaves and stems. The technique is used to create floral ornaments.

For a long time I could not figure out why the masters of ebru liked to repeat the same flower again and again in one picture so often. I found my answer when I started drawing ebru flowers myself. It became obvious that that repetition of an ornament was a sign of an artist's skill! It is incredibly difficult to create two identical images side by side because we are drawing on a liquid.

Can you imagine how trained your eye and your hand needs to be to pick up the same amount of paint with a needle to drop it on the surface of water again and again! They need to be absolutely identical: maybe 2, or 4 or 20 at a time! Usually they create 20 identical flowers (5 by 4) when draw in the Hatip ebru style. A master gets this skill after years and years of practice!  

Battal Ebru is another kind of the ebru technique. It is used to create textures. They usually use 4 (or so) colors to create it. The colors are splashed on to the surface of water. This technique gives a textured pattern resembling marble pattern.

Another ebry style is used for creating textured patterns. It is called comb (or scaly) ebru. Special combs are used to create it. The pattern resembles  a snake skin pattern.

Other variations of ebru are called Wave ebru (Gelgit ebru) and "the nightingale nests" (Bulbul Ebru). I won't be talking about them today :)

Katya Ryazanova

Etsy shop

Pinterest

I would like to share a few samples of ebru drawings by an artist Mustafa Duzgunman (1920 - 1990):

You can see more of his works here.

Party nails

I love the color combination that Roza chose for this week! So sweet!

Monday Inspirational Quote

Sun necklace

Sunday Home Decor Collection

What a wonderful light collection I have received from Anna today! I am imagining a room decorated with the items like this. What is outside when I am looking through the window? Snowy sunny day! Oh, good, it is only an imagination! There are still colorful autumn trees outside and the green grass :)

Find all the featured shops in this collection as well as the featured shops from the previously published collections in our growing guide of great items for the house decor here.

Bead Day. Beading by Vera Orlova

Bead sculpture by Vera Orlova

Jewellery masterpieces by Paul Gabriel Liénard

'Forget-me-nots' tiara, designed and made by Paul Gabriel Liénard (born 1849), Paris. About 1905. Horn, gold, diamonds and pearls. Qatar Museums Authority

Jewellery history. Mustard seed jewellery

I am always searching for the interesting topics on the jewelry history subject. I looked here and there and found (somewhere) a mention of the mustard seed jewelry. It looked like granulated jewelry at the first glance, so I did not expect to find a story behind it... At least a story of granulation that would be different from the one I have already written in my blog here. 

CORO Vintage Mustard Seed Earrings 1950s Jewelry

Symbolic "mustard seeds" can be represented with the tiny gold granulation in the jewelry pieces. However, there is a wide variety of jewelry pieces that contain actual mustard seeds. FYI, the seeds look like tiny yellow spheres 1-2 mm in diameter. 

Why do people want to wear the mustard seeds?  The mustard seeds are a symbol of faith, as they are mentioned in the Bible a few times. Those tiny little granules grow to become a tree that is up to 20 feet tall and 20 feet wide. It also grows in dry hot weather. The mustard seeds are the best symbols of faith because of this. You can read more about it in wikipedia. 

Faith Mustard Seed Miniature Bottle

It looks like the mustard seeds have become a jewelry trend about two hundred years ago during the Victorian era. However, they were most likely worn in the glass vials before. The next time they have become popular was the 1940 's during the World War two, when people needed a strong symbol of hope. The mustard seed jewelry stayed popular till the 1960's.

It is not a big fashion trend now. However, the mustard seed jewelry will always be popular among people who like jewelry with the meaning. It is still a symbol of hope, faith and good luck. You can find many designs to chose from, either modern or vintage. 

 Mustard Seed Necklace All Things Are Possible