The baking has started

Next week is my birthday. It is one of the Big-O’s (go ahead, flatter me and take a bad guess!). So, I decided I want to invite my friends over for tea and cake, and I am going to do (almost) all the baking myself. Now, I’ve implied before on this blog that a kitchen is not the place that fills me with “inspiration”, cooking is not my “artistic expression”, and that thing about baking being a “stress releaser”, quite the opposite! Having said that, I love food. I love knowing about food and I spend more time than what I should in from of the TV watching cooking shows. Ina Garten is like a personal friend, I have a crush on Trish Deseine and our pvr is clogged with Masterchef episodes. I own a foodie shop, for goodness sake!!

So, I can do this!! I can spend most of this week in my kitchen creating a few things to spoil my friends. First up was my mum’s “very-secret-recipe” cheesecake. They serve it at my parents’ hotel (see here), and it is one of my husband’s favourites. In hindsight with the cake now setting in the fridge, it turned out well (that is if you ignore the kilo I gained from licking off all the spoons), but the process had me in a cold sweat! Kaaitjie, the hotel’s cook, giggled a bit when I made two calls within the first 5 minutes to ask questions about the crust, which is only the small first step! And my sister calmed the nerves by giving me a family favourite prep talk. She told me to stand in front of the mirror and chant the words from the movie Cool Runnings: “I see pride, I see power ….”!!!

My point is, this post today is about evidence. I made this. All by myself. And the part I liked best is playing with my camera to take these pics….J