All that baking can't be good for one's diet.

It's September again! And in our family, that means... birthdays. I think I can safely say that not a day goes by in September without it being the birthday of someone I know. Thankfully, most of those people are not my direct relatives so there's less pressure to buy them gifts or make them things. However, 3 of those people are my brother, mother and sister.

I didn't plan for this to happen, however, all three of them got something baked or cooked for their birthday. (and I say 'got', even though my sister technically hasn't received hers yet. More on this later.) First, my brother. He turned 26 this year and in an act of childlike defiance of his age, decided that he wanted to make a rainbow cake for his birthday party. Yes. A rainbow cake.



Of course, he decided this without having a clue on how this would actually work. So, I decided to give him a hand. On a stormy Saturday afternoon, I came over to his house and, while fending of nosy cats that were desparate to find out what was going on in that kitchen and whether it was something they could steal and eat or not, we made a massive, multi-coloured, striped monstrosity-slash-rainbow cake.

(With faces on the side. Does anyone else see faces in this cake? It freaked us out a bit when we took it out of the oven...)

Which he later topped off with lemon-flavoured frosting and Skittles. Yes, he really turned 26, not 6. It was a bright, multi-coloured, sugary mess but it was a big hit at the party!

The monday after this sugarfest was my mother's birthday. I decided to throw her a special birthday dinner based on English pub-meals since she loves the UK, loves pubs, and we have such great memories from last year's holiday where we spent a week with the eight of us in a lovely, lovely inn in the south-west of England and really enjoyed the big, homely dinners we had there. So I decided to invade their kitchen for the day and make a big dinner! I was going to make:
- tomato soup with fresh herbs
- breaded garlic mushrooms
- 2 different types of meat pies (chicken and leek and curry-beef)
- fish and chips
- mushy peas
- and sticky toffee pudding for dessert.

A bit much? A bit much. There were supposed to be eight or ten of us in total, but as always, things did not go as planned so my sister ran off halfway through dinner because she had driving lessons, my brother ran off halfway through to pick up his girlfriend from the train station, and my planning was less than perfect so I ended up still working on dessert while people were already coming in for coffee and cake. Dessert ended up just being served out on the table and people could grab one if they wanted.

This was the only picture I could take. I didn't have the time! I was rushing through the house, running in and out of the kitchen... I guess my planning wasn't as good as it could be. I should have started earlier, or made some stuff in advance. But the end result was absolutely wonderful and my mother was baffled that I had made everything from scratch, including the pastry for the meat pies and the caramel sauce for the sticky toffee pudding! (that was exciting to make, by the way. I had never melted sugar before, and it took quite a bit longer than I had anticipated, but the end result was the hit of the evening. My brother was speechless. It takes a lot for him to be speechless.)

Lastly, my sister's birthday. It was her birthday yesterday, but with a sick BF we decided not to go over for dinner and I emailed her part of her birthday gift.

Cake? Yep! It's still a surprise what kind of cake it will be, but she's going to love it, I'm sure. I'll tell you all about it when it's done and she's received her other gifts!

Oh all right, one more sneak peek then. But that's all I'm giving you!
Kind of a giveaway, really, isn't it? But you'll just have to wait until after Saturday to find out what kind of cake it really is! Stay tuned!