Birthday Bash

My extended family and I celebrated my cousin’s birthday in style last weekend at the wonderful Art Deco Midland Hotel in Morecambe. Marian decided to have a “bit of a do” to celebrate a random birthday rather than wait for the next funeral to meet up! What a brilliant idea it was! In keeping with the venue, we dressed in 1920s style clothing and danced the night away (in my case, as well as my damaged knee allowed) to some fabulous live music. And we got a guided historical tour of the hotel thrown in! It was a perfect occasion!

Afternoon Tea Treat

I enjoyed a wonderful birthday treat with Nerea last weekend when she took me for Afternoon Tea to Armathwaite Hall, a beautiful country house on the shores of Bassenthwaite.  We were seated in the bay window with views giving onto the lake and enjoyed tea from a bottomless pot served with warm quiche, dainty sandwiches and a selection of cakes. Because Nerea had mentioned that it was my birthday, I was also presented with a slice of birthday cake.  I enjoyed my afternoon enormously as tea is such a delightful meal, and in such elegant surroundings it was very special.

 

Birthday bonus

We had a lovely 21st birthday celebration with Nerea yesterday.  She enjoyed a “team building” paintball experience with her college cronies (displaying some horrific bruises to prove it had been great fun) before coming home with Alex to a birthday meal with melted camembert, fizz and cake.  She was thrilled with all her cards and gifts and still has the excitement of her Canadian skiing holiday with Bill and Alex to come. However we’re concerned by her apparent plan to maximise the birthday bonus opportunity to avoid unpleasant tasks by pleading that it’s her 21st birthday week, month and year!

Red Velvet cake

A power cut earlier in the day meant I ended up baking the layers of Nerea’s red velvet birthday cake while trying to watch Silent Witness last night. I’m not entirely convinced that the grunge colour is sufficiently virulent but I followed the recipe and used what seemed to be an awfully large quantity of colouring just to achieve the shade it is! And because of the lateness of the baking hour, I had to leave the frosting until today. But despite its colour, I’m looking forward to tonight’s tasting session once it’s iced! Now where are the chopped nuts?

Red Velvet Cake

Cake ingredients

150g butter, softened
300g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs, separated
250g plain flour
25g cornflour
1 tsp baking powder
2 level tbsp good quality cocoa powder
250ml buttermilk
Red food colouring (use 2 tbsp liquid colour or 1/2 tsp thick red food paste)
Pinch of salt
1 tsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Frosting

2 large egg whites
250g caster sugar
50g golden syrup
Pinch of salt
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
2 tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla extract

1.Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Butter and flour the sides of 2, 9 inch/23cmcake tins and line the bases with parchment paper.
2. Cream the butter in a large bowl or in an electric food mixer until soft. Add the sugar and beat until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and the egg yolks, one b y one, beating well after each addition.
3. Place the flour, cornflour, baking powder and cocoa powder in a sieve resting on a plate. Measure the buttermilk with the food colouring and mix together. It should be very red, so add more if you need to.
4. Sift one-third of the dry ingredients into the butter and eggs mixture until just combined, then pour in one-third of the buttermilk mixture and mix until just combined. Continue, combining a third at a time, until both are incorporated.
5. Whisk the egg whites and salt in a large, spotlessly clean bowl until stiffish peaks form. Add one-quarter to the batter and mix. Add the remaining egg whites in three stages, folding them in gently with a large metal spoon until just incorporated, leaving as much air in the egg whites as possible.
6. In a small bowl, mix the vinegar and bicarbonate of soda until it bubbles up, then gently fold this into the batter. Quickly pour the batter into the two prepared tins and smooth the tops. Bake in the oven for 25–30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean and the cakes feel slightly springy on top.
7. Leave in the tins for 15 minutes, then carefully remove the cakes from the tins, running a table knife or a palette knife slowly around them to loosen them, and invert them onto a wire rack to cool.
To make the white frosting, 

1. Place the egg whites, sugar, golden syrup, salt, cream of tartar and water in a stainless steel or heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. (The base of the bowl should not touch the water.) 

2. Bring the water to a steady simmer. With a hand-held electric beater or a balloon whisk (to build up your muscles!), whisk the mixture until you have shiny, satiny soft peaks. Remove the bowl from the simmering water and continue to whisk for a further 2 minutes – it will get a bit stiffer. Whisk in the vanilla extract.
3. Immediately ice the middle, top and sides of the cake with a palette knife, fluffing the frosting up to form little peaks all over the cake. You need to work fast to ice the cake, as the icing sets very quickly. Leave for at least 30 minutes to allow a thin crust to form outside a creamy interior.

Happy 21st Birthday

Can Nerea really be 21 today?  It’s hard to believe that so many years have passed since our tiny, perfect, baby was placed in my arms during the early hours of a snowy, February morning? Inevitably, milestone birthdays prompt a period of reflection and looking back over the past two decades, it seems that we’ve achieved so much together as a family, with Nerea maturing into a beautiful person. She’s a well-rounded, articulate and loving young woman who stands poised, ready to take the next step forward into the rest of her life with confidence. And for that, we’re grateful

Sandwiches give way to Sushi

Being in Whistler meant we could celebrate Nerea’s 20th birthday in style at a local sushi house.  Alex and Nerea had chosen the restaurant as it came well recommended and we all enjoy sushi. We weren’t disappointed. The selection of food was excellent and included both tuna and salmon, much to Alex’s delight as they rarely eat salmon because Nerea isn’t keen on it.  We also had hot sake, which was a first for Andy and me.  How times have changed since we had a birthday party tea with heart shaped ham sandwiches, homemade sausage rolls and decorated butterfly buns!

A Birthday Across the Miles

Compared to the excitement of her 18^th birthday last year, Nerea’s birthday celebrations were always going to be low key but with her celebrating away from home for the first time, today has been a “rite of passage for us all.  But, when we spoke on Skype tonight, she was delighted  that Iratxe, Manu and the children had made it an extra special day for her with a candlelit cake, an English rendition of Happy Birthday and a generous  gift of a coat.  It was a lovely gesture, designed to cheer her after Alex returned home from his weekend visit

Birthday Baking

I’ve been deliberating on how to ensure Nerea gets a homemade birthday cake in Spain and I think I’ve solved it.  I’m going to bake her a carrot cake in a mini loaf tin which Alex can take when he flies out to Spain early on Friday morning to see her.  My visit to Crewe, involving an overnight stay, and Andy’s visit to Reading tomorrow means that the baking must be done tonight but as carrot cake is pretty good at “keeping”, I think it’ll survive.  And even if it arrives in crumbs, it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?

Job done!

A bog hopping birthday blast

I like to be different so while others celebrate birthdays with wine, chocolates and theatre outings, I went bog hopping!

Andy and I were actually searching  for a geocache (what else?) on Walton Moss and were rewarded not only with the cache but with the dramatic landscapes of the flat, barren moss contrasting with the tortured sky . That my right foot was completely soaked before we’d even gone 100m was an irrelevance; those stunning “big skies” were worth it, even if the wellies definitely have to go!

Dry socks, toasted crumpets and tea rounded off a lovely birthday afternoon!

Birthday Book

It's my birthday (I know; how can I have reached the age of 29 already???) and I was delighted to receive Claire Balding’s new autobiography, “My Animals and Other Family” from Mr and Miss Glis.  It was a great choice as I’d intended to buy the book myself, anticipating a good read based purely on the enthusiastic and sincere presentational style (as seen on TV!) of Claire herself.  As I can never put a good book down, I've resisted doing more than reading the first chapter and looking at the photos, saving the rest for later.  As predicted, I’m hooked! 

My daughter, my inspiration

 Nerea celebrated her 18th birthday at the weekend so it was a time for love, tears and laughter. One of her gifts was a collage of random photos and it was so rewarding to share them with her, remembering where they’d been taken and what we’d been doing. Reminiscing made me consider writing a letter to Nerea, sharing some of my memories of the past 18 years, but also looking to the future.  So write I did, keeping it personal by writing longhand.  It was a surprisingly emotional but rewarding letter to write and we're both so pleased I did.

Sweet 17!

 

Nerea celebrated her 17^th birthday in glorious style. She went out for a lovely meal with Alex on the Friday night  before the celebrations ramped up with an Indian meal at another local restaurant on the Saturday with her girlfriends.  Then it was a (non) sleep over at our house where birthday cake and moderate amounts of wine were consumed while watching a scary film; Andy and I retired to bed early!!.  The party concluded with home made waffles and maple syrup for breakfast on Sunday.  Unsurprisingly, the rest of the day involved her catching up on her beauty sleep!