送给自己的生日蛋糕

I was 41 just a week ago...but now I am not.

I guess most people would think that it is odd to make your own birthday cake. I felt that way too when I first made my own birthday cake. I got used to it after a few times (see here, and here). Since there is absolutely zero chance that anyone will buy me a cake, so I must as well make use of my own 'talents' and create one for myself ;')

The best thing about making a cake for myself is that I can do whatever I like. I get to decide what goes into the cake without having to worry about someone else's preference and taste. Even if the cake turns out to be a disaster, no one will blame me. So I am free to come up with whatever I fancy...and most importantly, I get to make a very 'girly' cake for myself, and no one will complain!

To accommodate to our busy weekend, I made the sponge cake in the morning...and only got to prepare the fillings late in the night. The mousse filling was a mixture of mascarpone cheese (yes, I am not ashamed to splurge on myself once a year, anyway, this cake is way cheaper then any store bought ones!), freshly blended strawberries puree, and whipping cream. It was just like making the filling for a tiramisu...the only difference is, I added in some gelatin to help the mousse to set better. Just like the previous mango and yogurt pudding cake, I didn't get the ingredients amount right! I had used too much strawberries puree, the mascarpone cheese was a little separated, making the filling appeared grainy. The mousse like filling was still a little wobbly even after staying up whole night in the fridge. I have wanted to decorate the cake with strawberries and some blueberries...but alias I couldn't get any blueberries when I visited the supermarket, twice! Since I had a box of grapes in the fridge, I used them to double up. No, it was not a good choice, I won't use them if the cake was meant for someone else. Since it is a ME cake, so who cares? I won't worry myself too much about it...I have enough things to make my hair grey at every single tick of the second hand.

My younger boy gave me this handmade fridge magnet for 'my birthday'...he made it with jumping clay...I was quite impressed with his fine motor skills as this is no bigger than a 50cent coin. So you think it was very sweet of him to make this for me?...but the true fact is, he had wanted to give it to me as a mother's day gift...he can remember Mother's Day every year, but not his mother's birthday :'(

and my elder child gave me his master piece...I think he got this idea after I taught him how to cut out a paper snow flake for his Science project some time back!

The irony is, after spending time making this cake, I didn't even had the chance to go through the motion of ~ 'sing birthday song, blow the candles (many many), take pictures and cut the cake' on my birthday! On second thoughts, since I have loaded the cake with so many berries there wasn't space left for any candles, unless we stick them on the sides, hahaha!

The most heart warming thing to me was not the 'birthday rituals'. Whatever sense of 'resentment' was redeemed right away when I heard my family oohs and aahs over the delicious cake. The cake tasted just like a strawberry flavoured tiramisu...and we were all instantly picked up on that lovely morning...