We had a couple of celebrations for Guillaume’s birthday this weekend. He actually turned 40 a couple of weeks ago but he was working in Sydney at the time, so it really wasn’t until this weekend that we were able to celebrate it. On Saturday night, we hired a babysitter and I took him out to dinner at Depot, a very cool restaurant here in Auckland and last night we did the birthday cake. With kids you just can’t escape the birthday cake and candles, they’ve been hassling me for it all week – not that I’d want to miss it anyway, I’ll take any excuse for cake…
I did a little search on the net for a new recipe and decided on Donna Hay’s Chocolate and Meringue cake. Like all of her wonderful recipes, it was reasonably simple to make, the only fiddly part was that the cake is done in two parts, partially cooking the cake and then topping with the meringue and returning to the oven for the remaining cooking time. It turned out really well, the meringue making a chocolate cake just that little bit more special. As it’s not from a book at home I won’t copy the recipe here as you can find it over at the Donna Hay website . Definitely a recipe to bookmark!
That’s not the end of celebrations though as I’m turning 40 this year too so we’ve decided that in August we’ll leave the kids with the grandparents and take off to Queenstown for four days of skiing to celebrate this milestone of a year for both of us.
Thank you to everyone who has so far answered my survey; I’m really gathering some useful information. I would love more though so if you haven’t yet done it, I’d really appreciate it if you could help me out and answer my ten quick questions. It can be done anonymously or if you leave your email, you can go into the draw to win Will Taylor’s new book, Bright Bazaar: Embracing Colour For Make-You-Smile Style. I just received my copy in the post today which I ordered on Amazon and it looks fab! Shame I didn’t receive it before the weekend as it would have been perfect reading for me on my Internet free Sunday yesterday. Did you switch off yesterday? Perhaps you’d like to join me on this new quest of mine. If you missed it, you can read about it here.
Enjoy your Monday everyone and I’ll see you back here on Wednesday with another instalment of, On The Wall with a gorgeous French girl in Germany as my guest.
Mel x
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The cake looks so divine! Happy 40th to Guillaume. We tried to get a table at Depot for our wedding anniversary but there was a long wait so ended up along a bit at Gusto which I also highly recommend! x x
Oh I haven’t done Gusto but I’ve heard loads about it so it’s on the list! Depot was such a great experience. xx
That cake looks amazing even if I don’t it cake:-)
Wow, I bet dinner was fab and that hubby survived that milestone. I loved turning 40, ahem, not sure how I’ll feel about turning 50 in August:-).. could be a :-( I’ll ask Catherine on her return:-))
Anyway going to Queenstown for four days of skiing is just the best. Love skiing and what a fantastic few day of a break it’ll be for you guys, celebrating each others’ milestone Birthdays.
Hope toe is better.
Oh, was meant to tell you that had a shoulder of lamb ready to be slow-cooked for 4 hours and oven tripped on fuse:-(( a quick think and I remembered glancing over a post you wrote about your G’s mother making a lamb dish I think I missed a couple of posts while in Berlin.
Anyway, off I looked, found it, made it and it was utterly delicious!!! Good job I have a well stocked kitchen:-)) Please extend my thanks… xx
Oh that’s so cool! Yes lucky you had a well stocked pantry. I’ll have to try it myself soon, it really was good. I think the best is yet to come Tina xx
Mhhhh! I use a special Italian recipe with pine nuts. But this chocolate cake also seems to be very delicious. Wish you a great week, Angela
Thanks Angela and you too! x M