Happy Birthday to Anthony!

Late Thursday night I was having an email war with Anthony and the dear lad let it slip that it was his birthday on Saturday (Aussie time that is). I think he may have been drunk at the time.

I lamented that I would be happy to bake him a cake, but that I didn't think Australian Quarantine would like that a whole bunch (they confiscated a beautiful lacquered Thai serving tray from me once because it may or may not have had a bottom woven from banana leaves -- that were lacquered, folks!). I jokingly offered to send him a photo of a cake that I baked in honour of his birthday.

That was the first piece in a fatalist baking puzzle of the sort that Sam went through in respect of her Sugar High Friday Bakewell tart. A series of events had begun to conspire to convince me that I must make this cake.

The second piece of the puzzle revealed itself in the form of a tart too good to make it to the office. I'd promised to bring baking to work and was actually thinking of bringing the chocolate tart I made for Sugar High Friday. I realized, after the tart came out of the oven and Cakes and I snuck the first piece, that the tart was never going to make it into the office.

I remembered my email conversation with Anthony and started idly flipping through cookbooks looking for inspiration. My first instinct was to make some sort of meat-based cake as Anthony is an Aussie bloke and therefore partial to meat and averse to all remotely girly foods. That is how they are over there. They even have meat raffles. I know! It's crazy.

I realized though, that a meat cake might not go down too well at work for morning tea.

So I picked up Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. It practically fell open to a recipe for flour-less chocolate cake that calls for a 435 gram tin of chestnut paste. "Lo, what is this I have in my cupboard?", I said to myself, "Could it be a 439 gram tin of chestnut paste that I bought in March not knowing what I would do with it but vaguely thinking I might eventually use it to make a chocolate cake?" In fact. It was.

This cake is perfect for Anthony. Dark, bitter chocolate, rich, but not too sweet. And positively FUDGY! A real blokey cake if there ever was one. I couldn't help myself from dusting it with sparkly cake decorating powder though - the food equivalent of body glitter! Sorry mate.

Happy Birthday Anthony! Here is a photo of some random (office mates of mine really, so not totally random as say, people off the street or anything like that) people eating a birthday cake I baked for you!

Comments

[clare eats]

I saw some of the comments on Spiceblog :) lol
I think a bithday cake is great, even if it is on the other side of the world, especially if it is a FUDGY chocolate and chesnut cake!

[Sam]

that's so funny.
Cake body glitter on a blokey cake.
good job!
anthony is a lucky fellow, except I can't help thinking your office mates are even luckier still.

[anthony]

Ha! Wooh! Thanks! A sign even. Cheers to your workmates.

A big boofy bloke with a bit of sparkle, that's me to a t that is.

: )

[Stephanie]

Oh, how funny!

I offered, but you actually did it!

[Lyn]

Sam,

You're welcome at mine for glitter cake anytime.

Anthony,
You make me laugh regularly, even when I'm not smart enough to catch all your brilliant humour. It's the least I can do.

Steph,

Once in a while, you just have to allow yourself to be silly. I reckon I do it a fair bit more than once in a while, maybe twice or three times in a while.