Saturday, February 15, 2014

life at home


or perhaps more accurately, life in the clean corners of my house.

^^ valentine's day flowers (tony also bought me a mini tiramisu - my favourite - from the best cake shop in town), joy the baker's apple and cinnamon donuts (they were later glazed and oh so yum) and some strangely clean looking dirty dishes.

^^ making lots of pizzas and pesto lately because the basil in our work veggie patch has gone nuts!

^^  some indoor keep-cool summer sewing. I've been making baby bloomers for friends. one friend is due any minute now and every time I get a text message my heart skips a beat. 

^^ chocolate cake making and a surprisingly fancy friday breakfast at home.

have a good week!

Saturday, February 8, 2014

yay cake - a small experiment in sharing



I've been itching to work on a project outside of work for a little while now, something that was all mine. for awhile I did nothing, hoping to dream up a really cool project idea, which became its own form of procrastination.

over the summer break tony helped me realise that most of the things that I've done in the past have come out of little experiments, rather than some kind of project proposal/pitch that is then executed.

I've had a cake idea floating around my head for close to 3 years, and it's morphed and changed a lot. initially it was an insane idea to cut up slices of cake and have them dangling from tree branches in a public park, ideally one that was a busy thoroughfare. and then wondered - who would eat anything they found in a public place?

I thought about baking birthday cakes for people who might not have people to make cakes for them, a cake subscription where you could sign up for a slice per month for a year, a cake exhibition where there would be free cake at a gallery every weekend for a month. each cake would help tell the story of a person, and to get the cake, you'd be invited to hear that person tell a story of their life while everyone sat around having tea and cake.

instead I decided to do something quickly and on a whim.  and so on friday night, I put a message on instagram and facebook inviting friends in my town to nominate themselves for a slice of free cake. I'd make it and have 8 slices available to share (keeping aside two for me and Tony) and they'd be available to pick up in town on sunday morning.


I had a last minute cake icing disaster. I'd been following this recipe for a chocolate cake with basil buttercream icing and about half an hour before the scheduled pick up time - the buttercream suddenly became very runny. it was also the wrong colour because I'd used golden caster sugar. I totally shouldn't have slept in and gone out for breakfast beforehand!

in the end I made an impromptu no-recipe choc peanut butter ganache with what I could find in the cupboard (I've been eyeballing this recipe for awhile). surprisingly it turned out okay!





it was a mad dash to get the cake iced, sliced and boxed in time. tony tried to save my basil buttercream while I made some back up icing and tried to take photos as I went. he also very kindly drove us to the cake pick up point and took some snaps in the park.



five people rsvp-ed and I met them at the fountain in town, I was thrilled that they'd turned up! vanessa arrived first, armed with some crab apple jam that her mum had made on her farm.

I'd brought two extra boxes just in case, and they were gifted to a trio of men who were hanging out in the shade nearby, listening to music. initially they were confused, 'how much?' one asked. we shared the two remaining boxes with them and went home to enjoy our own slices with some tea.

I can't wait to do it again soon!