This little sweater and bootie set is my gift for Ginny's baby shower, hosted by the lovely Tracy@Clover. Ginny is our weekly Yarn Along host and she has a  new baby daughter due in June. I have to admit, I love knitting for babies best. It makes me feel like a fairy Godmother bestowing love and blessings for a lifetime of happiness, which is my wish for Ginny's baby and for Ginny and her whole family. ♥

Knitting details:
yarn: Dale Baby Ull in white
sweater pattern: "Seamless Yoked Baby Sweater" by Carole Barenys  (free online)
bootie pattern is "Saartje's booties" by Saartje Bruijn  (free online)

Since we are having a shower, I made a cake (of course I did : ) ). It is a white chocolate & raspberry cake decorated with fresh violets from my garden. The recipe comes from BBC Good Food and is by John Whaite. I first saw it on the blog Rosie Makes. It is an absolutely delicious and beautiful cake filled with white chocolate ganache. I re-wrote the recipe using American baking measurements (my quantities may vary slightly from the original, but I had excellent results:

Preheat oven to 350°F

Ingredients for cake:
1 cup butter
3/4 c white chocolate broken into pieces (I used Ghiradelli white chocolate baking chips)
4 large eggs
1 cup superfine sugar
2 cups self-rising flour
1 package of frozen raspberries thawed and well-drained (about a 300 g. package) or use fresh raspberries

Spray to 8 inch round cake pans with non-stick baking spray.
Put the butter and chocolate in a heatproof mixing bowl, set over a pan of simmering water and allow to melt slowly, stirring occassionally.
When the butter and chocolate have melted, remove from heat and cool for 2 min.; then beat in the eggs and sugar with mixer. Fold in flour and raspberries (be gentle with the raspberries, you don't want the cake batter to turn completely pink!).
Pour batter evenly into cake pans and bake for about 30 min. or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Remove cakes from oven and cool in pans for 10 min. before turning out onto wire rack.

Ingredients for ganache:
1 1/2 cups white chocolate bits
1 cup heavy cream

Place the chocolate and 1/2 c of the cream in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir until the chocolate has melted into the cream and you are left with a smooth, glossy ganache. Remove bowl from heat and cool to room temperature (this takes awhile). When ganache is cool, beat in the rest of the cream. I used an electric mixer on low speed for about 30 seconds. The ganache will be thin at this point. Refrigerate ganache for at least an hour.

When the cakes have cooled, sandwich them together with the chocolate ganache. Dust with confectioner's sugar just before serving.