Let me eat cake.

Sorry for the cliché headline. There is just no other word for yesterday. It seemed like the birthday Gods wanted to make up for 31 years of celebrating without a cake. My family is not big on cakes. They are big on cooking, but I have not seen either of them to ever bake a cake (my mother will debate this fact vehemently, but for the sake of the story: my family does not bake).

When I was a child we had a housekeeper, who I lovingly called ‘Frau Waldi’, from a tiny village outside my home town. Whenever they had birthday celebrations there, apparently the whole village gathered and baked cakes for the birthday girl/boy. Each baked one. So on any given Monday morning Frau Waldi may appear at our house with a big container of left over cakes. What a feast for a little cake deprived child like me!

Even for my birthdays I would not get cake. I got sweets instead. Don’t get me wrong – I loved it. My Mum would put a huge tray with all my favourite sweets together and we would sing and gather around Haribo, Kinder Schokolade, and Mikado chocolate sticks. One year she even put lychees on the tray, a rare treat for a girl in the middle of nowhere Germany. I loved lychees. One for me and each child invited. I lucked out, because most of my friends had never seen a lychee before and refused to eat theirs. More for me – hurray!

What a surprise it was that upon moving to Cape Town I realized that the South African side of my family also doesn’t do birthday cakes, but trays. The only difference is that they add biltong on top. Apparently the kids would refuse all the other sweets without it. I think biltong on my trays would have made for another lychee-esque experience amongst my friends.

Getting to the point here...yesterday things were different. The birthday Gods became cake Gods and they were smiling. Thekla who cooked me birthday dinner had already told me she was making me cake. Quite a big thing coming from her as she is usually not big on cakes. Excitement starting already pre-birthday...

Next thing I know it was 9am birthday morning and I was starving. My stomach didn’t like the fact that it had not been fed any pizza the night before and was growling (more on why I am officially addicted to pizza these days later...). Man to the rescue – I got a call asking me to come downstairs. There he is with the most amazing piece of raspberry deliciousness from Cassis and a pink candle...because I’m a still a little pink loving girl at heart (not that he knows that there was a time when my entire wardrobe was Barbie pink). Breakfast delivery in the most perfect way.



I devoured it, so sorry only the candle
was left by the time I got to picture taking.

An hour later I spot my boss walking in with another little purple box. More excitement for me in form of a little Cassis chocolate bomb. Or whatever the French, probably more elegant sounding, equivalent would be called.



My hands slightly shakey in excitement..



And a pink ribbon too!

Then things started to get really exciting. I was  on the phone with my Dad when aforementioned friend Callie from Cakebread walked in with a job recon. He was waiting by my desk for me to finish and a cheeky question of ‘Where is my birthday cheesecake?’ was on the tip of my tongue. He beat me to it: “Happy birthday! Your cheesecake is in the oven and I will deliver it later.”

Aaaaaaawwwwh. I was in official cake heaven. Thank you cake Gods, you rock my world!