Last week it was my cat's first birthday and, unexpectedly, I found 14 otherwise entirely normal people who were happy to come around and help him celebrate.
We had a sort of italiano-greek dinner; easy goast cheese and olive tapanade canape's, a good cheese platter, spicy tomato and white bean soup with crusty bread, vegetable lasagne, pumpkin gnocci and some tasty salads.
The highlight, for me at least, was the cat shaped cake! When it comes to first birthday party animal cakes, there is a healthy tradition in my family of creating sugary confections in animal shapes. I still recall the beautiful Bunny my mother made for my first birthday -
My first birthday cake!
I think this was probably a sponge cake, but I decided to make a (fairly) light chocolate cake, hoping that it would vaguely compliment the rest of the meal. The following is an old family recipe:
Chocolate Cake
1 ½ cups self raising flour
1 ¼ cups sugar
½ cup cocoa
2/3 cup melted butter
Small teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup milk
2 eggs (unbeaten)
Method:
Sift all dry ingredients into bowl. Drop in melted butter and add ¾ cup milk and vanilla. Beat 250 strokes, add remaining milk and eggs and beat another 200 strokes. Bake 30-40 minutes in moderate oven.
(If you're lazy like me it's not exactly necessary to stir that many times, but it's kind of fun if you're in the mood!)
To create a purrfect cat I make two cakes to this recipe and, when fully cool, cut according to the Betty Crocker Halloween Cat instructions:
I then whipped up come blue butter frosting, smothered the cake in said frosting, sprinkled desicated coconut all over (for that nice furry look), added some lollies for a pretty cat face and voilà -
Yes - I did make everyone wear party hats.
It was delicious...well at least for the humans. Mr Mieow was treated to a roo mince and olive oil 'cake' topped with ricotta frosting (yes I know cats are lactose intolerant - but he loves it!)
No, he wasn't allowed to eat that giant cake in one go!
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