Triple Whammy Birthday Cake
We moved house a couple of months ago and the camera charger disappeared in the move, leaving us without photos. I only found it today during a frantic attempt to clean up the spare room and have been reliving ancient memories from Christmas and the new year.
Among them was this glorious monstrosity - my birthday cake. TK couldn't decide which of my favourite cakes to make: black forest, red velvet or chocolate. So he made all three, bless him.  It's got layers of red velvet and Scharffenberger chocolate cake sandwiched together with a ready-made choc mousse. TK pierced it through with kirsch syrup, covered it in cream cheese frosting and topped it all off with kirsch-soaked cherries. It fed eight people at birthday dinner and we were still cutting tall, ship-like slices off it well into the next week. TK was definitely my cake hero that day. And he still is!  Black Velvet Cake? Red Forest Cake? I can't decide.
Lemon Yoghurt CakeWhat to do when you’re laid low and can’t eat a thing? Make a cake. A couple of weeks ago I fell victim to a passing Canberra bug and was forced to remain in isolation, foodless and friendless. The nadir of illness, to me, is that moment in the middle of the night when you can no longer sleep it off and can only lie there, aching and woolly-headed, wishing you were dead. But the next worst thing is the hunger and thirst. Not the hunger that means a slow reawakening of health – ooh, I could totally eat a whole bowl of soup and golden buttery bread. Just the crappy one where you desperately want cool lemonade, or fried chicken, or 37 rum balls but can’t swallow anything. I had that hunger. A cake I couldn't eat seemed a happy medium.  TK had made a big tub of butter chicken for us just as I fell ill (and heroically managed to eat all of it over the course of a week). To make the marinade for the chicken, he’d bought a bucket of yoghurt the size of my head. The yoghurt needed using up and Ina Garten came to the rescue with a Youtube video.Perhaps it was as much Garten’s soothing, motherly style as her soft lemon yoghurt cake. The recipe was easy enough even for me to follow – whisk the wet ingredients with sugar, grate the soul of a lemon in tiny curls into the bowl, whirl in the sifted flours and powders. The only odd moment was that you add half a cup of vegetable oil into the mix dead last. There were a couple of minutes when the cake refused to dry out in the oven but it just meant a rustic deep brown edge to each slice. It’s a moist cake, sunny but softened by yoghurt. Garten adds a lemon and sugar glaze over the top but I preferred it plain. The leftover batter was delightful, but it killed me like a velvety, lemon assassin. Barefoot Contessa: Lemon Yogurt Cake
Cupcakes With a Twist I needed something to take to work for afternoon tea. So TK decided to do experimental baking - and after consulting The Cupcake Project he came up with these amazing Red Wine, Camembert and Chocolate Cupcakes. The idea sounds completely crazy. But with Valhrona chocolate and walnuts it becomes a lovely, chocolatey cupcake with a sort of alcoholic berry haze from the wine and a slightly savoury note from the cheese. I was a bit apprehensive about the red wine ganache. Tristan and his friends really enjoyed it but to my unsophisticated palate it tasted sour and winey. So he made me a toned-down version of the ganache by folding in an extra serve of dark chocolate. Next time I think we'll try the recipe with a King Island double brie and with a less rich chocolate, which might allow the wine and brie to show through much more.
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