XJ's Birthday!

Made this cake for XJ's birthday today!

It was supposed to be a surprise cake. Me and Linnet asked XJ to have dinner together, like we regularly do, the families in PV. Nothing about her birthday was mentioned to her. And we were hoping that she wouldn't suspect anything. Just come for the dinner, then we surprise her with the cake and wish her happy birthday...

Then, this afternoon, when me and XJ met for lunch, she asked me:

"Do you know any bakeries around here?"

Me: Erm, well... there aren't any bakeries per se around here. (Not like BreadTalk in SG) Why?

XJ: I want to buy a cake.

Me: Er... Why leh?

XJ: It's my birthday!

Me: Ya, I know....! Er, no need to buy lah!

(Darn, secret's out! *Kicking myself*)

***

Anyway, we had a good dinner. Sally brought her delicious seafood-veggie stirfry. Linnet made yummy chicken herbal soup and braised chicken (very good... she's going to sell this for the SG Food Fest in mid Nov), and I brought a stir fry kai-lan and fried egg. And the cake of course. The birthday girl gets to rest today. :)

And when it came to the cake, we did the one-candle-is-enough-already thing, which thoroughly confused the kids. Hannah kept thinking it is baby Irwynn's one-year-old birthday, even though that is still in about two months' time.

As for the taste test, it was passable for a first time. I actually made a cake and cut it into two layers (cheating!), instead of baking two separate layers, as written in the recipe. Perhaps that is why the cake feels a bit too dense. Mistake number two is that I used whipped cream instead of frosting. I learnt that whipped cream doesn't stay on top of cakes very well -- they actually get absorbed into the cake. That's why you can still see the "exposed" cake at the sides.