tiny happy

My little sister has moved to Europe. She and her husband will work in the Czech Republic for a couple of years, and I've been entrusted with her favourite possession while she's gone.

It's a mint-green Kitchenaid cake mixer. Sarah really loves to make cakes. I think she scrimped and saved for this mixer shortly after her wedding a few years ago. So I'm honoured to care for it for a while, and it's rather nice to have someone (thing?) else do the work for me, especially creaming butter and sugar which is a drag. 

To celebrate the start of school holidays, I used the mixer to make a coconut cake. It all started when I found this: Emily Dickinson's coconut cake recipe. Naturally, I had to try it. The only thing I did was swap the 'soda' + cream of tartar for ordinary baking powder. I made a topping for the cake from a little butter, some icing sugar, coconut, milk and the scrapings from a vanilla bean. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

Thanks for entering the book giveaway. I combined the names from the facebook post and the blog comments, and drew one at random. Congratulations, Alisa! Will email you in a minute.