Birthdays

It's funny that as a pastry chef I have actually received very few birthday cakes in my life after having left home in my teens.

Most people become afraid to give me one , girlfriends or acquaintances shy to bake me a cake or decorate one considering my occupation.

But few realise is the thought that counts. Just like a gift, I do not require the most extravagant or the most expensive, I just like to be remembered like everyone else.

If I had chosen finance as a career, would people be afraid to give me cash , if I had chosen cars or mechanics wouldn't they relish in the fact that giving me subscriptions to auto magazines, tools or car parts would make me joyously happy.

So why can't they just see that a pastry chef just wants to be shown love by receiving a birthday cake, each and every year. Perhaps twelve  months between dates is just not long enough to plan the surprise.

In total I can remember just two birthday cakes in the past 10-15 years. There was the lamington birthday cake given to me after a hard weekend in the Yarra valley by gracious hosts and vineyard owners, Brian and Denise Love and there was a chocolate mousse cake prepared by my Executive Chef of my current employ, he even wrote the Happy birthday himself.

Having made so many cakes myself over the years there is nothing I like myself more than a simple cake of roses. But I like making them out of pastillage so thats only for my satisfaction. I love to start with a lump of gum paste and end up with a rose as perfect as nature (or better). But truly I have come to enjoy making cakes with a theme for one reason. To have a birthday cake and to have a cake given to you which expresses your own likes or loves of that moment on your life ( we always change as we grown older) is an amazing feeling. I think it would be amazing to grow up and look back at your yearly birthday cake photos and remember the year you loved dinosaurs, the year you thought about cartoon characters, your first car, first love, a pet, a friend etc. A birthday cake should reflect the child inside. Even if you are 42.

As a pastry chef, some months there are few and others we seem to have all the birthdays in the world. This month I have three. Lucky !! From a simplistic old style old fashioned roses for a girls on a classic round cake to dinosaurs and interactive volcano to something from my childhood-Mr Men inspired.

I'm not a cake expert, I far prefer the rigors of making a gorgeous entrement or macarons, but these attempts at keeping both adults and children happy, have been catalogued so even I do not forget how to do them again in the future.

Happy Birthday to anyone enjoying one this month . Peace, Love and Happiness to everyone else.

Classic
old Style but fast and effective

Dinosaurs around an active volcano

Mr Men inspired cake