Happy Birthday Month to the Pastry Chef

Thank goodness the Pastry Chef was so excited to see her birthday cake that she showed up at twenty to four because we were able to put her to work! She made the mistake of asking how she could help, and the next thing she knew, the Southerner had her sweeping the living room. Meanwhile, I was working furiously on her cake, trying to get it iced so I could make the bread. Yes...at twenty to four.

In spite of her worries that the Southerner might get boring or the wrong birthday candles, I did talk her into letting him go to the store for them, and she rolled out the dough for this flat bread*, while I fried it up. We filled the house with smoke, which is why I usually make it long before the guests arrive, but it was so tasty, everyone forgave me.

I checked the blog yesterday to see when the last time was that I'd made one of my favourite soups...split red lentil with onion and lemon, and it was last February, so that's what we had. This is a very popular soup, so I made a lot, and we put a pretty good dent in it.

Lots of people showed up (they'd heard there was going to be cake) and we had a very fun time. There were even two miniature donkeys in the yard! The Engineers are creating a mini-farm on their one acre, and they recently got two tiny donkeys and they brought them along... as a sort of Sunday Soup Show and Tell. They were unbelievably cute, but it was too dark for the Southerner to get a picture.

As you probably know if you read this blog, the Pastry Chef is not only a fabulous, beautiful, lovely person in her own right, but she also has a wonderful family. Very nice parents, and she's the sister of the late Sous Chef. A year ago, the Sous Chef told me that the Pastry Chef would like a maple syrup cake ** for her birthday. We never made it though, because the Pastry Chef couldn't come to soup in February or March. So, yesterday, I made a maple syrup cake. It's supposed to be a sheet cake with icing, but the Pastry Chef requested the heart-shaped layer cake pans, so I doubled the recipe and made three layers. I needed something to fill it with, so I whipped the thick part of coconut milk (chill it and it will separate from the coconut water, then you just whip it like whipped cream) mixed with maple syrup. I put that between the layers, and then iced it with maple syrup icing.

After eating a piece, the Writer said, "You should be granted full Canadian citizenship on the strength of the cake alone." So I guess you could say it was a success!

Here's a picture from the Southerner of me and the Pastry Chef.

Happy Birthday, Pastry Chef!

*For the bread, I used olive oil instead of shortening.
** I used coconut oil instead of butter in the cake, and hippie vegan butter in the icing.