Alis turned 7 yesterday. Hubby at Madinah still, so obviously no birthday dinner whatsoever. Any celebration plan will have to wait till Papa comes back. However, it is such a pity and I will left feeling all guilty if I didn't prepare anything for her. So I prepared her home made chocolate cake and cooked for her, her favorite food, Lontong as a surprise. Surprise because I told her the night before when I tucked her to bed that we will get her a cake only after Papa's back a day after her birthday so she wasn't expecting any cake on her birthday, from the way I see it. However, I did prepare goodie bags to be taken to school for all her classmates and she's quite happy and satisfied with it.

The card I created consists of her pictures collage since baby till recent and this is my birthday wish for her to accompany the card.

"Another year for you dear daughter.. Alhamdullilah.. 

May you grow smarter, prettier, mature, cleverer and wiser 

with every passing year, Insya Allah"

Planning to make a cake is easy, the execution is not! 

I am not good at baking, at all. Cooking is different story all together from baking. With cooking, you can adjust to add or lessen the ingredients, depends on your liking and taste bud. No fix measurement.. With baking, you had no choice but to follow the exact measurement, right temperature, correct ingredients and accurate technique to make it works. And it is not helping when I don't own any stand mixer or hand mixer, which is pretty essential in almost all cake recipe. The only utensils I owned that usable in baking is a whisk and spatula that I don't even remember I had for quite a while.

Call me ambitious but as long as I can put a smile on my girl's face, anything is worth to try. However, I do have a plan. I'll do the baking early in the morning just after they left for school. So based on my calculations, should my cake turned into disaster, I still have window of 1 hour or so to run to nearest bakeries and get her another cake ha ha ha. This is my first time baking a 'serious' cake from scratch, with decorating and all. 

Therefore.. Bismillah hirrahmannirahim.... It's do or die..

:: Cake checked! Candles checked! Simple decorations is clearly done by a very amateur baker but heyyy I tried my best okayyyy. The thought that counts! ::

:: Honestly, the texture is still not up to my expectation. Alhamdulillah nonetheless. What more can I say, for a first trial, I couldn't ask for a better result he he he ::

:: Happy daughters all smiling, checked! ::

:: Lontong, if you didn't know already ::