Well, July flew by in the blink of an eye and a lorry load of cake! I can hardly believe it’s August already but here we are on the first of the new month which means it’s time to join up with Sherry and friends for this month’s In My Kitchen.
I should dub this month’s episode of In My Kitchen as The Birthday Edition because it was a veritable birthday bonanza! Me, David and Teddy Roosevelt have our birthdays have our birthdays on the 9th, 3rd and 14th respectively aswell as a number of friends and family.
The month started with a classic kitchen disaster. I had planned to make David this dog cake from the AWW Awesome Cakes for Kids book for his birthday and suggested we have a cake off, he could make the same cake for my birthday a week later and we could decide who did it best.
The thing was that the cake used a shop bought swiss roll and mini jam rolls for the body and legs and a muffin for the head. David in his role as engineer said the design of the cake was flawed and that the legs wouldn’t support the weight of the body and the body wouldn’t support the weight of the head but I poo pooed his idea and carried on regardless. Big mistake. Huge mistake. The cake was a massive fail and at this stage, the dog cake took a one way ticket to the bin.
However, a birthday isn’t a birthday without a cake so the day before David’s birthday, I started frantically baking my favourite birthday sponge cake and decided to pivot with this piggy bank cake from the same book. I chose the piggy not because David is especially fond of pigs but because it looked relatively easy. Famous last words!
Piggy bank turned to pig due to a chocolate coin shortage and I could cope with that. What I couldn’t cope with was that when I made the buttercream I realised that my pink food colouring was out of date and had lost all it’s colour! By this stage, I just wanted the cake finished even if it did look anaemic.
As it turned out, the cake was delicious and David loved it. The moral of this story is always bake your own birthday cakes if you can because they will never let you down. It will take me a year to get over the trauma, LOL!
After the dog/pig cake debacle, David said he would try something new and decided on a crossword/scrabble cake. As usual, I made the sponge using my favourite recipe and left him to his own devices to decorate it – with the left over lollies that I’d bought for the ill fated dog cake because waste not, want not and all that. When it came to the Birthday Cake Off, he was the clear winner!
When the weather is fine (which sadly, is not often,) we have ‘Fizzy Fridays’ with the neighbours on The Green at the top of the street. It’s very informal – bring your own drinks, a folding chair if you fancy and some snacks if you feel like sharing. That’s where we met our Ukranian neighbours and after a few glasses of bubbles I offered my services to help the husband with his English. He’s only been here a couple of months and I’m more than happy to help – I actually really miss teaching English! Anyhoo, one day he turned up with some cake, birthday cake and you’ll never guess what… we have the same birthday! How funny is that? We were thrilled to see that his Ukranian birthday cake was a layered honey cake, very similar to the Georgian Honey Cake and it was soooooo good!
Teddy did not miss out on the cake action either. I made him my Healthy Homemade Dog Cake, a human grade meat cake made of pumpkin, turkey breast mince, eggs and chia seeds and slathered in mashed potato icing. The cake was way too big for tiny Ted to eat all by himself so the neighbourhood dogs all got a cakey doggy bag! I still can’t believe he’s 5!
It was also my friend Lucy’s birthday (I currently know six Lucys – it’s all getting very confusing!) and I really wanted to make her a cat cake. However, the whole disastrous dog cake was a bit too fresh in my memory and the birthday festivities were keeping me very busy so I got these cute cake toppers from Amazon and made her cat cakes instead!
I just had time to squeeze in one more birthday cake at the end of the month for my friend/neighbour. She loves giraffes so it was the perfect excuse to attempt the George the Giraffe cake from the AWW Birthday Cake Book. This time I used half a bottle of yellow food colouring from Waitrose and still George was only just yellow. English food colouring is so lame!
In other news, I made my first ever trifle with the birthday cake off cuts. They say it takes a village and this trifle certainly did! I borrowed my neighbour’s trifle bowl, picked some rhubarb from my friend’s allotment and bought the custard from Mr Marks and Mr Spencer! It was my first trifle but it won’t be my last.
My friends obviously know me too well because I was spoiled with some beautiful kitchen gifts. Caroline went with a jug theme with this gorgeous red and white number and a beautiful tea towel from local artist Fiona Cumberpatch – it’s exceptionally jolly!
My dear friend Dionne in Sydney is one of the best gift givers I have ever met. Every birthday or Christmas I think to myself, oh she won’t be able to outdo last year’s gift but each time she does. This year, Teddy and I shared a gift with this gorgeous place mat for doggy dinners! It’s just perfect!
My friend Lucy (not cat cake Lucy, another one!) who I incidentally met through the blog is my foodiest friend. We have been known to send each other pictures of our respective dinners and her spice drawer is a beauty to behold. Anyhoo, she got me a Jono bread saw which definitely lives up to it’s reputation of being Britain’s Best Bread Knife! We bought some sourdough from Belvoir Bakery at the market and cut the nicest slices!
I also shared the recipe for one of our all time favourite dishes – big call I know – but this Easy Chicken Pot Pie is a real winner, winner chicken dinner!
At the end of the month, we headed down to Sussex for a fabulous few days with friends. We stayed in Rye – it was such a charming little town, steeped in history and full of the most amazing food. We popped into the old skool bakery before we left and I was thrilled to see they had freshly baked Chelsea Buns. I used to love these as a kid but you rarely see them anymore.
Best of all, even though Rye is in Sussex they had London Cheesecakes proving my theory that these delicious cakes really can only be found in the south east of England. You won’t be surprised when I tell you I didn’t leave Rye without one!
So July has left me with a full heart and full of cake! If you could have any birthday cake, what would you choose? Do you have a busy birthday month? And what’s your favourite bakery treat? Tell me everything in the comments!
