Birthday

Finishing Alex's birthday cake / trial wedding cake took a surprisingly long time. I made a large amount of white chocolate ganache and then had to wait for it to reach the perfect consistency for icing. I spread it on the inside  layers, along with fresh passion-fruit to cut through the sweetness of the ganache - that all went well. Putting a thick layer of ganache over the whole of the outside was much more trying, even using a turntable and icing scraper. In the end Pete came to help and between the two of use we ended up with something presentable, which we dusted with gold and then topped with a mix of passion-fruit and left over ganache. 

There was time for a break before we prepared the main course for dinner - a leg of free range venison from the local farm shop, cooked slowly with port and plums. This was accompanied by potatoes Boulangere, Brussels sprouts with chestnuts and roast carrots and parsnips - a real autumn meal!  To my relief, Lizzy and Chris loved the look and flavour of the cake - it was really good and was firm enough to slice thinly without being too heavy. Let's hope I can do it again!

With all the cooking there was very little time for photography, but I had a quick photoshoot with Alex in the garden to mark his special day. I also took a few photographs while we were eating - I  particularly loved this portrait of his girlfriend, Charley.