Black Forest Birthday

This post is a response to the interest in whether there was a baking project for Mark's recent birthday (and if you don't know the date I'm afraid I can't divulge it - part of the division of labour in our marriage is for me to protect the identity of this date). The short answer is: Yes. But cake is only one feature of a birthday celebration. I think to create a good birthday, several things are required.

The first is conversation. This was covered by spending the evening with Jensens, talking and playing Bohnanza (an obscure bean growing game which can become strangely addictive, depending on your personality). We had a great evening, and managed to make some headway with the cake.

Because the second important feature is cake. The cake was Mark's favourite: Black Forest which I made using real chocolate, so it was very chocolatey (the way it should be), and covered with ganache (which involves more chocolate. And cream).

I still haven't quite made peace with the oven, so it doesn't do cakes quite right yet (everything else is fine - it's a fan-forced oven and we are both a little bit in love with it. It works so well, but of course, our last oven did not, and so my cake making was adjusted to a strange and recalcitrant oven and hasn't quite worked out what to do in the presence of an obedient oven that actually wants to help). So, the cake sank a little, but as it was a very large cake and there was a lot of cream to hold it together, that wasn't too bad.

My only real disappointment was that the British don't sell cherries in juice (that I was able to find), and so the best I could do was cherry pie filling which I privately thought was a bit clunky. However the excessive amount of chocolate and cream was a good distraction from the cherries, so all was well.

The third feature is steak. This is not a universal requirement for all birthdays. Just for Mark. So, I went to the covered markets and checked out all the butchers, scorning their boar, deer, goat, duck, pheasant and other exotic dead animals for sale. I found the butcher that seemed to take beef the most seriously and asked him for his best piece. It cost so much I felt like I was doing something illegal, but according to Mark it was very good steak, so it was worthwhile. It's probably a good thing that Mark will only be having three more birthdays over here...

The fourth part of Mark's birthday is to thank God for Mark. I think Mark is a remarkable man, and has used his years well. This is never to be taken for granted and shows that God is at work in his life which is a thing to rejoice about and to thank God for. So, we did that as well.

The only difference this year was we did some of the things on different days so that Mark wouldn't miss out if Tiny decided to come early. He really had no intention of making an appearance early, however so we enjoyed Mark birthday celebrations at a leisurely pace instead. JMB.