Week 15 – an All Blacks themed 40th birthday cake

IMG_1790It has been a busy old week this week with some birthday baking for our friend Danny, who just turned 40. His wife Monika asked me to bake him a birthday cake for his party, something chocolate-y, and as I had the perfect chocolate cake in my repertoire from Henry’s christening cake, I was happy to oblige.

Knowing that Danny loves motor racing, I had in mind that I would decorate his cake with a racing theme. However, as I wandered around Hobbycraft, picking out different coloured fondant icing, Andrew recognised the onset of panic and cleverly suggested a simpler rugby theme for the cake of an All Blacks fern, which immediately appealed, so I stocked up on black and white fondant and headed home with my goodies to plan a week of baking.

IMG_1759As with Henry’s cake, I baked the cake on Tuesday (sampling the cake mix while I was at it), buttercreamed it on Wednesday (sampling the icing while I was at it), fondant iced it on Thursday and completed the decorations on Friday. On Saturday before the party Andrew and I spent a lot of time trying to glue together dowling for the rugby posts, which was harder than anticipated but we were eventually successful.

IMG_1760Danny seemed pleased with the cake, and I received lots of compliments from the other party guests (including Pascal from Paris who remembered the chocolate Guinness cake I had made Danny for his 30th birthday party!). So today, basking in the flush of my second cake decorating success, I have decided that I need to increase my range of cakes (as Andrew for one won’t eat chocolate cake, and I am sure there are a few weird others who feel the same) and challenge myself with the decoration. Next up could very well be Andrew’s 40th birthday cake in July …

IMG_1788Not much else of note happened during the week, apart from that we had to prepare our kitchen for the boiler installation with some demolition of my lovely built in shelves and cupboards. Once again we are living with the contents of those cupboards in our living room, which is not much fun (except for the cats, who are treating it like their new adventure playground), but hopefully the boiler will be in place quickly (work starts tomorrow) and we can get back to normal soon. I am assuming that the kitchen disruption caused by the boiler will be minimal so I can cook as normal, which means the following is planned for this week:

  • Monday – beef curry with brown rice
  • Tuesday – chicken with cashew nuts and rice noodles
  • Wednesday – I’ll be out for dinner with friends
  • Thursday – salmon and vegetables
  • Friday – we’re out for dinner with the Canadians
  • Saturday – homemade pizza
  • Sunday – roast duck

I am still having my scrambled eggs for breakfast in the mornings after the gym, and an added incentive to go this week is that I won’t have hot water at home while the boiler is being replaced so will need to shower at the gym … so I should really do an exercise class whilst I am there! As I have stuffed my fat little face with chocolate (and cake mix!) this week, I really need to have salad for lunches … luckily the weather is lovely at the moment so it’s not hard to want to enjoy salad instead of stodge … let’s hope the sunshine continues.

Do you have any nice plans for the week you would like to share with me? Please put them in the comments below.

Happy birthday Danny!

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