Cake.

So, this morning, the lady in the grocery shop looked me in the eye and commented on how organised I must be with four children. After I picked myself up off the floor, I wondered how my reputation had preceded me. How on earth did she know that this morning's before school rush hour had been particularly bad.....that my nine year old was wearing nothing other than undies until ten past eight (due at school at half past) as his uniform had to be rescued from the line and finished off in the dryer. I confess, no matter how hard I try, I am hopeless at organisation.

I had awoken in the early hours of this morning......when it was still dark and my husband was out riding his bike.....to the realisation that I hadn't made morning tea for my children's school lunches. Panic. So I got up early and made 'Granny Boyd's Biscuits' from Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess:

Who am I kidding? Anyway, in my still sleep befuddled condition I accidentally started creaming the butter and flour so then I thought 'what the hey' and threw everything in together and hoped for the best. Et voila, it worked. So, all you do is combine 150g self raising flour, 125g soft butter and 60g raw sugar and enough Dutch Press cocoa to make it nice and chocolatey and mix it up until it all comes together. Then I bake however many biscuits I need for lunches (150 degrees for 15 minutes) and wrap the rest of the dough in cling wrap and keep it in the fridge. This way the biscuits don't all get scoffed at afternoon tea and you have enough to bake during the hurly burly that will be breakfast time.....tomorrow:

It was a big weekend for baking and cake in our house. In celebration of Mimi's 11th birthday I made not one but two rainbow cakes:

One for home and one for school:

This took most of Sunday and over half a kilo of flour, the same of sugar and of butter and 10 eggs. Held together and iced with even more butter and sugar. As much as I can, I use local products. Although I'm not deluding myself that these really good ingredients made all this cake....healthy. Chemical free wheat grown at Kempton and milled in the historic Callington Mill at Oatlands:

Ashgrove Butter, batch churned on the farm at Elizabeth Town:

And I only ever use free range eggs....I have been to a battery farm and what they do is CRUEL. When we kept our own chooks.....back before we had four children, two beagles and a thousand worms in a worm farm, we used to rescue point of lay birds from a battery farm down the Channel and give them a new life in our garden. They were so grateful.

Luckily my KitchenAid was up to the task:

I still remember how desperately I coveted it for Christmas almost seven years ago. It was at the tail end of our arduous renovation and we had made a pact of no big gifts. But, I couldn't help myself, I wanted a pink KitchenAid to accessorise with my new kitchen.....with every fibre of my being. I hinted. I suggested outright. I cried when the pink one in the shop was sold......when I thanked my husband for buying it, he said that he hadn't. Meanwhile, I kept reminding myself that material possessions don't buy you happiness....even if they do match the glass in the top of your kitchen windows. I had resigned myself to never owning a pink KitchenAid, only to open an envelope on Christmas morning....a sales receipt showing that it had been ordered and would arrive sometime in January. It has earned it's keep.

Recounting this anecdote, I started worrying about my sometimes obsessive behaviour. When I was growing up, my Dad bought himself a new white Victa lawn mower. For some time afterwards he mowed the lawn everyday, cleaned his mower afterwards.....and then wheeled it into the house and next to his side of the bed. Maybe this level of obsession runs in the family.

Cake is such a fundamental ingredient in our family's birthday celebrations. When I had my last birthday I gave serious thought to serving a lunch composed only of cake and pink champagne. My husband talked me into two savoury courses......followed by a cake smorgasbord. This was my cake oriented invite:

'Let us eat cake'.....and we did:

And will again on Sunday when I take Mimi and her friends into town for High Tea. Mercifully, I won't have to bake it all myself. And don't worry, I'm working on racking up 5 - 6 Bikram Yoga classes this week to compensate for the high level of cake consumption.

R

PS My husband has been teasing me that I can't significantly swell the numbers of followers of my blog.....at first I was adamant that I could, yet with only a week to go I am starting to question my ability. Please follow.....there is a prize....you could win the beautiful book Living in History which is an open door to many of Hobart and Tasmania's gorgeous, old homes AND a jar of cumquat compote made by me with fruit from my trees:

Go on, click the box up on the top right....please!