Happy Birthday!

Have you ever forgotten your own birthday? Whilst this has happened to me with other people's special days - luckily not too often - so far I was at least able to remember mine. However, it almost happened to this dear blog. Just by chance, I asked myself yesterday when its first anniversary would be. I quickly checked here and - oh my gosh - only one more day to go!

After one year, it's almost hard to believe that there was a life without food blogging. Not that I create something blog-worthy everyday - but all this thinking about food, making food, and photographing food turned out to be much more than a mere hobby. For some people, it might not look like a creative outburst having to wait for dinner whilst I'm busy taking pictures from all angles. However, it gives me an unexpected sense of inner satisfaction when one of my creations not only tastes good but also photographs well. And the best part? Lots of nice people, completely unknown to me, stop by, have a look around and sometimes even drop me a line. This thrill I get when I read new comments, still hasn't worn off. Whenever I'm feeling moody, all I have to do is looking at my stats and smiling at the idea that someone from the Maldives or Ghana or some other very remote place payed my little blog a visit... Nora, I'll always feel indebted to you for introducing me to this new world!

But back to the birthday - there has to be a cake, right? Being only one day ahead of time, I couldn't possibly make a layer cake, try my hands on macarons or do any other fancy stuff. However, I still wanted to do something I'd never made before. One idea popped up in my head that had been lurking somewhere for quite some time: financiers. They're quick to make but still have something mysterious about them. At least for me because in German cookbooks you would never see a cake that doesn't contain any egg yolks, almost no flour (let alone baking powder) but lots of butter, sugar, and almond flour instead. I was a little bit suspicious how such a cake should rise and brown nicely. However, I decided to go with a recipe I had found at Feeding my Enthusiasms - it's originally from David Lebovitz so I figured you can't go wrong with that.

And all my worries proved absolutely unnecessary. After very little work, these tiny cakes began to fill the kitchen with their almond perfume - and they looked so cute with their golden brown tops peeking out of the paper garments. They even made my boyfriend utter an appreciating "hmmmm"...