Groovy and colourful doodle cake

For the longest time I had been wanting to make one of those cakes in which you get an unexpected splash of colour when you cut the cake, so when my best friend got me a box of Duff Goldman's tie-dye cake mix I jumped at the opportunity at the first birthday that came up.

Goethe's color wheel from his 1810 Theory of Colours

It was so much fun to make. I think it is a great idea to make this with kids, you could use the chance to teach them all about color theory.

I really had a blast, and it was a piece of cake to make (haha). All the ingredients needed were the flour/sugar mix, 3 tablespoons of oil, 3 egg whites and some water. I guess if you make it at home you could make a basic Angel food cake.

Once you have the dough nice and fluffy (by beating the egg whites with the oil and dry ingredients) it is just a matter of dividing the dough in six parts, painting it by adding drops of magenta, cyan and yellow food color, and arranging it in a greased and floured cake pan using your imagination, preferably following the rainbow: red, then orange, then yellow, then green, then blue, then purple.

I filled the cake with freshly homemade lemon curd, strawberries and cheese-cream frosting (200 gr. butter, 200 gr. cheese-cream and 400 gr. powdered sugar beat together). Afterwards I covered it in a thin layer of fondant (I love Satin Ice) and then everyone went crazy doodling messages, flowers, bees, dragonflies on top of the cake.

I do not normally like artificially prepared cake boxes, as I prefer to get the freshest ingredients and just do everything from scratch, but this cake came out really good and everyone thought it was a really fun idea.

Seen in Amsterdam

The other day we went for one of our walks in Amsterdam, the sun was shining bright and it was just perfect. We had soft ice-cream, a merveilleux, and avocado sandwich and a stop for mint-tea and hummus on bread at one of my favorite places, Café de Jaren (Nieuwe Doelenstraat 20-22). I love it so much because it is central, the food is good, though not overpriced, you can get international press free to read while you are there, if you are lucky you get to sit in a terrace by the water, and everybody mingles there: old, young, families with kids, businessmen, groups of girlfriends catching up...

We were able to sneak a peek inside the renovated Rijksmuseum and I was impressed. It looks like one of the big museums, it could have been the Louvre or the British Museum. There is a sort of tunnel in the middle of the building where it's possible to bike or walk through. It was the first time I saw it, as it had been closed to the public for so long.

We walked and walked and walked, we did some small shops, and we serendipitously found a good friend of mine and her boyfriend during our stroll and stopped for a chat.

Do you have any cities that  you love because no matter how many times you visit there is always something new?