Read a Bit! Talk a Bit! Cake

This is a chocolate cake version of these cupcakes. You should be able to use that batter with similar baking instructions. This is the best cupcale recipe i have ever tried. I filled mine with caramel and they were so moist and delicious. Very easy to make. The frosting was perfect, the combination of butter and shortening is much better than use of one or the other. I will definatly be saving this recipe and sharing it around.

Thank you for an amazing yummy recipe! Followed this recipe exactly and mine were very dense and wet underneath not undercooked, just wet. Would it still be ok if i half the amount of sugar in the icing? Check out this post for more info. The post you gave me is really helpful! My family loved the cupcakes very much, the icing was super yummy!!! Thank you so much for your help! I will try baking a cake next time!!

I want to ask, how do you actually ice the sides with a ice the sides with a icing bag, because every time I use the icing bag it breaks and my icing skills looks horrible. Can you please teach me some methods I love baking so much!!! So glad you enjoyed them! Where exactly does the bag break?

You might find it helpful to look through some of my posts that include videos and watch some of the layer cake ones to see some clips of my frosting techniques. These looked phenomenal but unfortunately lacked the depth of flavour that comes with using butter in a vanilla cupcake. I guess it just depends on whether you like butter based or oil based. I get betterreviews for these cupcakes than butterred ones. Also unsalted or salted would be best? But I have made cakes using oil based recipes before and the texture turns out really crumbly and messes up the frosting.

Does this recipe also gives out a crumbly result? Does it hold well to being frosted? Hi, Lindsay Your cupcakes recipe is phenomenon. Can I use this for layer cake, would it be sturdy enough for 2 or 3 tier cake? Do you have any recipe for moist vanilla cake. So glad you enjoy them! I have used this for a 3 layer cake, which you can find here.

I made these today and true to their name they are a lovely moist, soft cupcake. I think the ingredients are all bland and the lack of butter is noticeable in this recipe. Hi I am trying this recipe just now. Wonder why there was no baking soda.

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Would it still be thesame as other recipes that have it? And btw ive added almond extract will it affect its texture? They tasted almost like pancakes. I tried again, adding a little extra vanilla, but I got the same result. I loved the cupcakes! However, they slightly tasted like corn bread? I was sure to follow the exact recipe, any idea what could have went wrong? Hi Lindsay, I tried the recipe last night and my cupcakes flattened out when I pulled them out of the oven.

Can you tell me exactly how you measured everything? I weigh the dry ingredients, but use a measuring cup for the liquids. If you weighed them, that certainly could have been an issue. What might happen if I added cocoa powder to the dry ingredients to make half the batter chocolate?

Would I have to compensate with more liquid? Your thoughts are much appreciated!! This is the chocolate version of the same recipe. You could just adjust it to cupcakes. Alternatively, you could follow this recipe , which is a little bit different. Thank you for this recipe! My daughter is wanting mini cakes for her birthday. Can I take the shortening out of the frosting and replace it with butter? The texture of the cupcakes are amazing. Hi i saw that the batter was a little bit runny not that stiff and useally needs more flour at least i would have added a little bit more first question this is the right conststancy?

Second question i want to bake them inside a baking cup would it be ok because of tne oil or should i use butter? I have no idea what went wrong? My cupcakes turned out dense, more like a muffin. I feel like, perhaps it was too much flour. I like my cupcakes to be light and fluffy and these turned out dense: Can I use Vanilla paste or Vanilla Bean?

If so, would I still use 1T? I just like to see the vanilla specks and Love the Vanilla flavor. They are as moist as can be. They are just so easy to make no creaming and go down a treat! These cupcakes tasted terrible. A group of 6 year olds would not even finish a single mini cupcake.

I made this cupcake, and … My God!!! I want to know if I can use this recipe for wedding cakes. My Brazilian recipes are not working well here. The recipe does work for cakes. You can see an example here. This is an awful recipe, and does not provide enough information for people outside of America. Thank you for such a great recipe! This is exactly how I feel. Almost word for word. In fact I started to think I had impulsively written it while in a cake coma. I was sure something was off but it turned out to be the best cake ive ever made.

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Possibly the only recipe I will ever use again! Just have to say,besides my grandmothers recipe these are the best cupcakes I have made,my grandson loves to make cupcakes so he helped make them and my kids and grandkids devoured them in an evening. I tweeked the recipe by adding a tsp. Thank you for sharing this recipe. Everyone who bakes should give this one a try.

Just made these cupcakes today. They are amazing and soooo moist.

I do get a hint of the almond milk but it tastes fine. Thanks for sharing the recipe. Is there something wrong that i did? Im using bake paper cup Beside that, everything is perfect!! This is the first time I read about adding shortening to buttercream. Will it make the buttercream frosting more stable once piped?

Will it add flavor to the frosting? Gave this recipe a go. Personally, not quite for me. I need to make cupcakes. Can I simply double the ingredients or do you suggest making two separate batters? I made these cupcakes exactly how it says and they turned out flat and raw even after baking for longer. I have tried at least 30 different cupcake recipes and this one is by FAR the best.

Light, fluffy, moist, perfect texture. Hello, I made these cupcakes today and they taste wonderful!! Great recipe with great vanilla flavor. Will be using this recipe again. This recipe sounds great! But I am doing 12 mini cupcakes. So should I do the recipe in half or is there some other way? After I added the cup of water, the batter became very thin and watery.

The baked cupcake tasted gummy instead of moist and fluffy. I used a food scale to measure all the ingredients. Do you know where I could have gone wrong? Very impressed with the ease, colour, moistness and look. Unfortunately I found the taste to be too sweet no problem, can cut down on sugar next time to taste but my biggest issue was the flavour, very poor compared to using butter. Thank you so much anyway and glad i gave them a go xx.

Certainly there can be a difference between butter and oil cakes. This is a nice oil-based option. For a butter-based cupcake, these are my favorites. This is really good. My family loves it. I will definitely try these again. Serves me right for trusting a random recipe! You will only be wasting time, supplies, and money! I was unsure to make these from all the negative comments. However, I decided to trust the recipe. This was a big mistake; I wasted my time with dense and chewy cupcakes.

After making the batter, I added the cup of water; the batter was very watery. It baked for 21 minutes. When I tried them, I though the sweetness was fine but texture was disappointing. The batter alone was delicious so I already knew the finished product would be yummy… and it was! The batter is very thin and liquidy. I typically use a spoon to fill cupcake liners but that would be nearly impossible with this recipe so I poured the batter in the liners using a measuring cup. Second batch I only did barely half way and they were perfect. The flavor and texture was perfect and they were a complete success!

This is now my go to recipe. Highly recommend this recipe. I like reading reviews before using a recipe too and I thought both points were super helpful. This is definitely my current go-to vanilla cupcake recipe. The cupcake came out moist and fluffy. My kids, husband and mother in law started hanging around the kitchen the moment I took these out of the oven.

I was skeptical at first because of the batter being so runny, but wow was I ever surprised that it actually worked! I made these and they were a huge hit! My kids loved them and have even asked me to make these over other vanilla cupcake recipes. I also found that they rose quite a bit so when icing, a lot had to be chopped off icing on roses, flowers, the like. Overall though great moist, fluffy recipe! Your cupcakes look great! However was wondering, can I replace 1 cup of water with 1 cup of plain yoghurt instead? Just wrap them well and defrost in the fridge. I also added cinnamon and rum extract for a more fall flavor.

Great base for many flavors and so versatile given it works with gluten free flour. Thank you so much! I made this recipe last night to see how my family would like it during our get together today. I had a little bit of a problem though before I got there though. I was looking for this recipe for a looong time!!! Grams and ml measurements were very helpful also. I need to thank you a lot!!!! You can find the amounts that recipes make just underneath the recipe title in the pink recipe card. It came out perfect! I so love the texture of the cake. Made these today, came out beautiful and moist.

I was wondering your opinion — do you think it would be better to replace some of the water or some of the milk in the recipe with eggnog? You can also check out these recent Eggnog Latte Cupcakes I shared. The recipe is a little different, but very good! Best cupcake recipe EVER!!!! Saving this for sure. I saw your vanilla cup cake. It looks so soft and lovely.

I am going to try that during this weekend. I will let you know how it comes. I am from Sri Lanka. Our measurements wont make any difference i think. Hello am a beginner. What if I separate the egg yolks and white and then whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and fold it to the rest of the mixture? I wanted to know if the cupcakes with butter cream could be kept out of the refrigerator and if so, for how long? I use the frosting as the recipe is written — with butter and shortening. I know some people like to use all butter.

If you do half and half, I leave them out of the fridge for several days. If you use all butter, I suggest refrigerating them and then serving at room temperature. I plan to make Cookie Dough Cupcakes for Christmas and was looking for a good vanilla cupcake recipe that would work. If I use your recipe as base, would it come out light and fluffy with the cookie dough balls or would it be too moist? Another option would be these cupcakes. Both are very good, just a preference thing. They just came out of the oven and are indeed, very moist.

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I was surprised that I was already done! Definitely keeping this recipe for future use. Hi Lindsay, What is the difference between this cupcake and your perfect moist and fluffy vanilla cupcake. Not to throw a wrench in your decision making, but this one is technically my favorite vanilla cupcake. Each has a different method. Generally similar ingredients except that this one has oil, not butter.

The other one I linked to is more traditional with the creaming of butter and sugar and make a nice, fluffy cupcake. Thank you for this recipe. The cupcakes are wonderful and the recipe is so easy! Today they wanted to add food coloring but we had already poured the batter so we added 1 drop of color to each cup and they made designs with a stick. Have you ever tried making mini cupcakes with this recipe? I wanted to make smaller cupcakes for my daughters preschool class! I believe I baked them for roughly 8 minutes. Made these last week. They came out beautiful and tasted great.

How long would you recommend to bake for? Sorry to say these cupcakes were not as good as they look. I made no changes in the recipe and they have a flour taste and smell. Mine look just like yours. Made 18 cupcakes and one small round cake with this recipe. I think this is my vanilla cake recipe for life! Which is the most similar chocolate version please? Where in the oven do I place my cupcake pan? Lower 3rd or center? Also, would it make a difference if I reduce the amount of sugar?

I try to place them in the center. Yay your buttercream held together well in the Australian Heat. You think I could use all shortening for the frosting to make it even more stable for lunchtime heat? So glad you enjoyed it! The sugar should be fine. I took the time to follow this recipe so precisely yet they tasted and smelled bad, had a strange consistency, stuck to the cupcake liners really bad, and did not rise properly. They also took way to longer than 17 minutes to bake to a non liquid state. I am just curious, what is the purpose of adding the water in this recipe?

I halved the recipe, next time I will reduce the sugar exponentially. Very delicious recipe but need to adjust cooking time. Hey Lindsay, I was looking a vanilla cake recipe with oil as the ones i try to make with butter tent to dry out pretty fast especially after being refrigerated. I like this recipe. Yes, it can be used as a cake. I was worried with how runny the batter is, but…….. Where has this recipe been all my life. Dear , can you please make dairy free eggless vanilla cupcake? My son school asked for that as some kids are allergic. Thanking Jesus for finding your website..

I halved the recipe, which was super easy to do I always check the number of eggs before I try to halve a recipe. It made enough batter for more than 12 cupcakes 13 or 14 probably — I might put a little less water next time? I did like that the batter was thin — I like being able to pour the batter from a large measuring cup, rather than spooning it it. They baked an extra minutes or so. They came out really yummy, a little more dense than I expected but still delish! Thanks for a yummy and quick recipe! We like the recipe very much! They came out really well.

Very moist and sweet. We had fun decorating them. Thanks so much for the recipe!! Going to try these tonight. Wondering what piping tip you used in the pictures for your cupcakes? I always make Betty Crocker Silver White Cake as cupcakes so interested to see how your recipe fares in comparison. I used Ateco tip , a closed start tip similar to the Wilton 1M or 2D. I found this recipe after making a batch of lemon cupcakes over the weekend and being disappointed by their dryness and poor texture. I just made a batch of these today and they are fabulous.

I was so inspired that I just ordered a copy of your book. I also made the frosting and it was delicious. Thank you for my new favorite cake recipe. No more box cakes for me! This time I am making the cupcakes so she can bring some home with her and I can keep some here with me she can take 1 and I will keep 11, hahahah. Okay, made these cupcakes today and I was skeptical from the beginning because it appears there is far too much liquid in the batter, and as expected the cupcakes never rose. I an experienced baker and love to try out other peoples recipes for cakes and cupcakes and sure enough they never rose because the leavening agent cannot stand up to that much liquid.

I plan to make these again tonight and this time I will decrease the liquid to 1 cup of milk. Will follow-up with another message when I have baked the second batch. I think you may have misread the recipe. Am I missing something? I tried this recipe now to the exact measurements.. Far from soft n fluffy. Not what I had expected. Thanks for the recipe… Like they say..

These look delicious, Lindsay! I have some cake flour on hand and am wondering if I can use it instead of the AP flour? Or do you think it will change the structure of the cupcakes too much? These looks so good! Does the taste come through? Does it melt very easily? Can I make the frosting very far ahead of time? Or does it loose the texture? Since my baking pans usually burn the bottoms a bit, I also lowered the temperature down to degrees and baked them a little longer. These little pink cupcakes turned out beautifully!!

This is the Best scratch strawberry cupcakes I have ever had! My son even said to me that these were the best cupcakes Ever!!! I will definitely try this recipe for vanilla cupcakes in the future. These cupcakes are genius! I use them every time and people rave about them. Hopefully, your cake top is a bit smoother. Use your offset spatula to continue to work the icing on the top of the cake and smooth the top edges. Do not mess with the sides or side part of the corners yet.

Just try to get the top as smooth as you can, the sides should already be smooth. Next, we use the paper towel to finish smoothing any imperfections that are left from the offset spatula. I usually start with the top of the cake, since it tends to be rougher and need more work. Place the paper towel on the cake, smoothest side down, and rub in small circular motions with the fondant smoother to smooth out the icing. Press firmly and evenly, but not hard. To help make sharper corners, place the paper towel on the top of cake, letting it hang over the edge and down the side. Placing your fingers against the side of the cake to keep the icing in place, use the fondant smoother to gently push the icing out towards to edge to help make that corner sharp.

Do that anywhere you think the edges could use it. Next, I like to take my offset spatula and remove excess icing at the bottom of the cake and give it a clean edge. The spatula is placed at an angle so that nothing is actually touching the side of the cake, but just the bottom of the spatula side is grabbing the excess icing. Then pull the excess towards you and away from the cake. Use your other icing tip to pipe on your border. I used Ateco tip , but you could also use Wilton 1M , which is similar, or any other tip you prefer. Sprinkle with some spraaaankles!

Put your cake on your favorite cake stand, add a few more sprinkles and dig in!! Learn how to decorate Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing. Moist and Fluffy Vanilla Cake the recipe for the cake in the tutorial above! Bananas Foster Layer Cake. Cherry Chocolate Chip Cake. Sparkling Cranberry White Chocolate Cake. I am completely in love with this tutorial, Lindsay! Your pics and instructions are so clear and helpful! The gifs are awesome. I will have to get a bench scraper, since I have seen so many cake experts recommend it!

This is awesome, I love that you use a lot of photos to make it easy doing at home, I like tutorial gif photos that show how to put cream on the top of the cake. This is a great tutorial and I now have Ateco icing smoothers in my Amazon shopping cart! Thank you SO much for this tutorial. Your descriptions and pictures make everything easier to understand. Oh man, I love this! I always have a hard time getting the smooth cake look.

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I really like your use of gifs, very helpful! Piping the frosting around the outside of the cake and smoothing it out seems so much easier than slapping some frosting on there. Can you do this for any size. Even a 16 rd. It should be fine with 3 layers of cake. I have many like that on the blog. What a perfect cake. The tools are so important in cake decorating! Now I need a GIF file tutorial from you.

Your nails look so pretty! Lindsay, this is fantastic! I will be referring to this tutorial often! Thank you so much! Love this post…you do always have the smoothest looking cakes! I use paper towels to smooth out my cakes too, but I never though to use a fondant smoother over the paper towels. I admire your very clean, smooth frosting on cakes. However, when i check the materials used, the icing tip in Amazon looks different from the one you use in the picture? Seriously gorgeous and I love every single tip! The top has always been the hardest part for me. Definitely giving paper towels a try.

They probably would stick to a sticky icing though. This is the problem I had. My paper towel lifted the icing when I removed it. What should I have done differently. Should I have left the iced cake to sit for longer before smoothing? I used half the amount of butter to icing sugar.

The issue would be frosting consistency. I hope it helps! I had no idea so much was involved. I literally thought you scooped the icing on with spoons and smoothed it down with one spatula. Awesome job sister… it looks great! You make me laugh Nelly. I made your pie today. The one that I linked to up near the top of the tutorial is called a crusting buttercream, which is ideal for this method of smoothing a cake and using a paper towel.

This tutorial is amazing! Thank you SO much for taking the time to share your tips and tricks.

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Your cakes are always inspiring, Lindsay! Hi, I was wondering do you ever get air bubbles under the frosting. This happened to me and I am not sure why. Your cakes look fantastic. But I have a question. Do I have to wait a little between the last smoothing and the Paper Towel Step? For the icing get dry? If the icing is too wet, you could wait a few minutes, but not too long. Also, if the the icing is too wet, you might want to reduce the amount of liquid next time.

Such a helpful tutorial! All the best to you! As for storing, I typically leave my cakes at room temperature unless there is a filling that needs refrigeration. I think they stay more moist that way. I usually just store mine in a cake carrier. My question is how does the paper towel not stick to the cake? Every time i have tried this it sticks and pulls off my frosting. Hmm, have you looked at my buttercream recipe? You are insanely talented! The thought of trying to ice a cake like that is really daunting… however your tutorial is awesome! I just started reblogging after a long break and I made a cake utilizing your method.

I have received some good feedback on it on IG and will be posting it on my blog. I would be happy to send you a pic of the cake if you would like to review. Have a great holiday! You are a skilled woman. Will be back to your blog again and again. My house is filled with the lovely smell of the chocolate cakes from the Turtle Cake recipe.

My friend is going to love this for her birthday cake. I am looking forward to trying your icing techniques. Thank you and good luck with all you do. You could try baking paper, but just be careful to not wrinkle it or that will transfer to the cake. I link to the recipe above, but here is the link as well. I talk a good bit about the recipe in that post. I have alwaysed loved your frosting on your cakes! I am so glad you created this tutorial. I have used wax paper similarly to the paper towel. But there is a chance of wrinkles with the wax.

I am going to try this method soon! This is a beautiful cake and I appreciate your step by step tutorial with photos. Did the cake go into the the refrigerator for a bit? The buttercream is a crusting buttercream, so you actually need to use the paper towel right away.



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I linked to the buttercream recipe I use in the post above. Not all frostings will work with the paper towel. This is the MOST beautiful cake ever!! I love your tutorial. I want to try to make a cake as smooth as yours! I think I might dig out my pastry bags and give this cake a whirl! All of your cakes are gorgeous and look so wonderfully delicious! I read a lot of tutorials that talk about refrigerating cakes first.

If you try it though and find that refrigerating helps, you certainly can. These cakes look so exquisite and the frosting is like art. I love making cakes and I consider my mixes to be super delicious. When it comes to frosting though, that is an art I have yet to perfect! I have a question that may seem silly. How do you keep your cake from sliding around on a cake turntable and how do you you transfer the cake to a pretty cake stand after it has been frosted? Btw, love your tutorial! My cake stand actually has a non-slide surface, but if yours is sliding around a great trick is to use the stuff that helps rugs not slip around on a hardwood floor.

I use them all the time when transporting cakes and desserts to keep them from sliding around the car. Just cut it into small pieces. A small piece will work wonders. As for transferring the frosted cake to a stand, I frost cakes on cardboard cake circles. If you look in these photos of the cake on the stand, you can see it underneath the sprinkles. I trim it down so that it fits within the stand. I hope that helps! One little question though. What size piping bag are you using? I just fussed at myself for buying so much baking stuff but here I go again!

Thanks for the great directions! Thank you a million times for this tutorial. So I was thinking instead of doing fondant over the entire cake I would try doing your smooth buttercream frosting tutorial, but then I got to thinking, would you still be able to stick fondant decorations onto the sides of the cake without the icing peeling away? For some reason I just get this horrible vision of doing all this work just to see it fall apart haha.

Thanks again for your great tutorial! Yes, you can still add fondant decorations. I use a sugar water made by dissolving some fondant in a little bit of water. However, it did provide a stark portrayal of the root of what's wrong with Communism. It may sound all right in principle, but it never works in my opinion. At any rate, I would highly recommend this excellent memoir, and it's a shame that it's out of stock on Amazon. Someone needs to do a reissue.

May 31, Chasity rated it it was amazing Shelves: This was an amazing and surprisingly uplifting read which was just what I needed right now in my life. It's interesting when books come into your life with perfect timing. This seems like it would be a heart crushing read since the premise of the memoir is a little girl growing up in Communist Czechoslovakia with, as she describes at the end of the book, 'no money, no choice, no chance.

The father is endlessly optimistic and determined, the mother is gentle and encouraging of her daughter's dreams, and there is a lot of love in the family. We should all be blessed with this type of family. The story is told with the voice of the author at her current age looking back at the events. The naivity of Dominika at that young age is well conveyed but also punctuated with insights from her older self about the history of her country and the politics of the time. It is an interesting blend of insight and the gentler perspective of a young child.

I enjoyed learning about the country. Some of their language, some of their tradition for the holidays, how people functioned under communist rule were all very interesting to me. In the beginning of the book, Dominika comments that during this time good sausage, cheap beer, and plenty of public holidays were enough to keep people going even though times were hard.

This kind of hope and the ability of the people in this country and particularly in Dominika's family to find small happiness is inspiring to me as I look at the problems in my own life. This was the happiest time in Dominika's life despite the many tragedies, illnesses, and set backs she faced. All because of her loving family providing a source of strength and safety as she grew up. I highly recommend this read to anyone who likes memoirs, likes learning about history and other countries and customs, or anyone who wants to read about the strength of the human spirit.

This story manages to be funny, uplifting, and inspiring even as it deals with difficult topics and the unfair nature of life. Aug 18, Elise rated it it was amazing. Even though Dominika Dery and her family go through trials the likes of which no first world family typically has to deal with, they work together to overcome the obstacles life throws at them, and they manage to have a little fun in the process. This book made me laugh, made me cry, and tau "The Twelve Little Cakes" is a delightful memoir that reads like a novel--complete with suspense and strong character development especially Dominika's mother --as every memoir should if it is well written.

This book made me laugh, made me cry, and taught me a great deal about Czechoslovakia on the outskirts of Prague in the s and s under the governance of Communist Russia. Told from the perspective of Dominika from the time of her birth until she turns 10 years old, this story is charming and nostalgic, and she successfully transported this reader to her magical childhood world full to bursting with the richness of Czech culture and its ancient rituals. I highly recommend this book; it was a fun and fast read.

Dec 25, Doug Lebo rated it it was amazing. This memoir of a little girl, growing up under the not so? The West could learn a lot about "the enemy" from these accounts of childhood behind the Iron Curtain, because many — Dery's especially - reveal an existence not of extreme poverty and dung-farming, but of life inhibited, and in a way, let free. This memoir, sometimes sad, quite funny, sometimes wry, entirely touching and compl This memoir of a little girl, growing up under the not so?

This memoir, sometimes sad, quite funny, sometimes wry, entirely touching and completely enthralling deserves a place among the best stories.

A Piece of Cake

Dery's work says something not only about the time and place it recalls, but something universal. Her printed words talk of an innocent child growing up near Prague, but speak to us of the human condition. We could all learn to see the world as Dominika does, through the revealing lens of her own childhood. Mar 15, Corinne Edwards rated it really liked it Shelves: When Dominika is born, her country of Czechoslovakia is under the iron fist of Communism.

Her parents, however, are dissidents which makes Dominika's life a struggle, to say the least. In a world where her neighbors are ready to report any movement her family makes, where every project requires bribery of some kind and there is only ever money to barely get by, Dominika somehow ends up with a loving and, strangely enough, charming childhood.

Beginning in her very early years, Dominika's memoir o When Dominika is born, her country of Czechoslovakia is under the iron fist of Communism. Beginning in her very early years, Dominika's memoir of living in the outskirts of Prague during the late 70s and 80s paints a unique picture. She is a clever and naughty one, sometimes her antics made me cringe or laugh out loud!

Especially as she gets older, I truly got a sense of what life must've been like living in Prague during that time period. The clear juxtaposition between party elite and those who do not support the regime. It's almost comical, how her father had to finagle everything because he refused to give in to the pressure. When I put it together that she's only about 18 months older than me, I had to wrap my brain around how different our two upbringings were, despite the fact that we were going through it all at the same time.

Sometimes it even felt nearly dystopian, like , the way you were watched, interrogated, fired from your employment. I can't imagine the relief when the Velvet Revolution finally created a more open government - little Dominika's entire childhood was a shifting and growing awareness of how different she was because of her family's decision to not support the Communist government. She a refreshing little heroine and despite her family's hardships, she seems to have been given an incredibly solid foundation.

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May 26, Daisy rated it liked it Recommends it for: The narrator or voice of this memoir is a very small, talkative girl between the ages of 3 and 7. She reminds me of a Czech Ramona the Pest with her curiosity and innocence and penchant for saying whatever's on her mind so that it often gets her into trouble. She's resourceful and courageous. She'll befriend anyone from three lonely grandmothers to a goat from a nearby farm to a group of Polish children whose language s The narrator or voice of this memoir is a very small, talkative girl between the ages of 3 and 7.

She'll befriend anyone from three lonely grandmothers to a goat from a nearby farm to a group of Polish children whose language she tries to imitate by lisping her own Czech. She's a little misfit who's observant and a tireless conversationalist. The first chapter starts out almost too cute but the book, which has more the feeling of a novel than a non-fiction memoir, gathers steam and the details of her family's life are interesting and enlightening. The little cakes of the title are mentioned in every chapter only in passing so that you've forgotten about them until they happen to turn up again, and that's kind of charming.

Because, lest we forget, cakes are important in every political system. As there weren't any kids my age to play with, I had no choice but to make my own entertainment. There was an old wooden bench in Mrs. Nova's backyard, so what I ended up doing was playing school with the cats. There was one particularly mean, young tomcat whose black-and-ginger fur looked like a flannel shirt, and he took great delight in disrupting my class.

Every time I tried to put him on the bench, he would hiss and try to scratch my arms. The afternoons were very hot, so the four house cats and a couple of the friendlier ones were happy to sprawl and fall asleep. I would pat them and tell them all the things I knew. I could count to twenty. I could write my name on a piece of paper. I could name all the colors, even purple and orange, and I knew that Prague was the capital of the Czech part of Czechoslovakia, while Bratislava was the capital of the Slovak part.

All in all, I was a very good teacher. Apr 05, Carol rated it really liked it Recommends it for: This memoir covers the first ten years of Dominika Dery life in Cernosice, a village outside of Prague Czechoslovakia between the years of - Book title "Twelve little Cakes" refers to 12 chapters, each a little tale of Dominika's childhood. Last paragraphs of book. This is the memory of my childhood. Driving back home in ourold, rusty, Skoda; my father's big hands steering us safely through the middle of the night; the soft touch of m This memoir covers the first ten years of Dominika Dery life in Cernosice, a village outside of Prague Czechoslovakia between the years of - Driving back home in ourold, rusty, Skoda; my father's big hands steering us safely through the middle of the night; the soft touch of my mother's hand on my head.

This was the happiest time in my life. The time when we had no money, no choice, and no chance. It would take me eighteen years to realize that what we had back then was as much as anyone on earth would ever need. We had each other, and plenty of love in our hearts. Made me admire the fortitude of the human spirit. There were many hardships they had to endure, things that don't exist in Unitied States.

Jun 05, Tiana rated it really liked it Shelves: This is a memoir of the author's childhood in Communist Czechoslovakia in the 70s and 80s. The stories are charming vingettes, while simlutaneously pointing out the harsh realties and ridiculousness of Communism. My only complaint was that the book ended a little abruptly. It helps that I happen to live with a Czech speaker, who loves all things Slavic. So I had could talk to my husband about the geography, Delightful! So I had could talk to my husband about the geography, descriptions, and traditions.

I also had help with the pronounciations. The few days while I was reading, he also decided to make me some Czech food. So I was able to read while eating Segedinsky Gulas, and fruit Knedliky. Jan 01, Mamama rated it really liked it. Set in Czechoslovakia during the Communist take over of the 's and 70's, a little girl tells her story.

This was a gift for Christmas and I read it in sittings. This is a good read, lest we forget what life under the Communist regime entailed.