Tea Kettle cake

A tea kettle cake for my lovely mother's birthday Dec 2012.  It was a delicate orange flavored cake with orange mousse filling. Mom was surprised when I asked her to stand in front of this for her birthday pictures, and was rather nonplussed when I handed her a knife to cut the kettle.......  She laughed so hard when she realized it is a cake-- bless her. 

It is interesting how coffee drinkers associate tea with being ill. We are tea drinkers. My family still has evening high tea every day. Mom always said tea warms us in winter and cools us on a summer day.  But I think she most enjoyed cutting a slice out of a tea kettle. 

A teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company.  ~Author Unknown

Sitar cake

This cake was for my very talented brother who plays the sitar quite well. It was designed after his sitar which  our father bought about 50+ years ago when he started to learn to play.  This instrument went with us everywhere.  It did not travel well on the way to the US; the gourd was broken when we picked it up at JFK, but thanks to some crazy glue and the hard work of our cousin,  this antique is whole again and plays very well. 

The round gourd (kaddu) was a vanila cake with passion fruit mousse filling and the long section was a Grandma's chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling.... Yum! now thats music to my ears. 

I made this painting of my brother playing the very sitar about a decade ago. He has a good ear for music and prefers to play by ear.