so much special all at once

This is a celebration cake. It's divided into several celebrations that I didn't even realise I was celebrating (the recipe yields 2, and I could have halved it...).

It's this girl's birthday. She is mucho special, for reasons I know in secret and for the ones she will happily tell you. Here is her cake, to be shared among an office full of people who I know are lovely but simply couldn't be with today:



It's also another girl's birthday. She is Lauren and if she has any web presences I don't know about them yet. But I do know that she is very special in some circles whose opinions I tend to respect, and that makes me feel like we are connected in this web of special-ity that is constantly being built up around us, ladies that we are in this land of the foreign and the familiar. Here is her cake, bearing her initial:



Tonight is also the night where Penguin Pete makes so many musics in a room. I think it will be beautiful. I have seen him before and he is doing some tiny squeal boom box rumpus room comfort sounds. They are special too. This is Penguin Pete making some sounds:



This is his cake:



So much love goes directly from my bursting heart to Bobby and Lauren and Pete. Directly.

And so that's the story of how one little cake celebrated so many things on this day of common excesses, which happened to be a day I randomly decided not to go to the grindstone of my wagework and decided to live instead.

p.s. This is Lauren's cake and Pete's cake looking like Ls and Ps, which is what you get in Australia when you drive somewhere with very little experience.

Rae St, 9:41 a.m.

Lucky Lydia is very loved.

the uniform

For some time I, like any good domestic enthusiast, have been collecting a rather amazing set of $2 aprons. This in itself is not a feat; any good thrift store will always have some, it's just up to you to go and pick the one that's prettiest. The few times I have had the opportunity to cook a meal in my kitchen with many, it's been lovely to see everyone finding one that fits their needs. And every time I wear one, I think why, oh why is this not just a dress instead?

jussa lil' bit

This is my special fucken ladyfriend in her joy garden. She also grows veggies there.



Yes, abundance, yes. She also had this to say about common excess, and whilst it's not in standard 'comment' form I thought it was a lovely comment:

i really love the new blog,too. it's something that i think about a lot. and such a beautiful thing to soak in during a time when all i hear from everyone is tighten the belt, better get hip to the economics of scarcity, reign it in. but you say NO! sustainable excess! you're a fucking genius.

I wasn't going to leave in the 'fucking genius' bit but I thought it a bit dishonest not to present her words in their entirety.

I hadn't really thought about that myself when I started this little project up, but now that it's been put into those words in that order, I think about it all the time. And the more I think about that 'belt tightening' stuff the more little excesses I find to roll around in. And maybe in some small way that's a way of coping with things that are narrowing - by noticing the things on the other side which are opening up.

chocolate and beetroot cake

The first time I saw a slice of chocolate and beetroot cake it was displayed behind plexi-glass on the counter at Loafer, looking moist and shapely and deeply cocoa-coloured. I might even go so far as to use the word 'quivering' to describe it - it's a very sexy cake, and so very moist and spongey that you can almost detect movement in it the way you could with a pudding or jelly. And it's so packed with amazing that you envision it sort of jittering around on the plate until you break into it for the first bite, causing all of that energy to explode.

When we talk about beetroot there is always the preoccupation with the colour - the depth of it, the way it stains your fingers, your chopping board, your tongue. When you combine that with cocoa, well...you need to see it, really, and I'll need to take some photos through the process. There's also something, for me, about root vegetables that is really affirming, hardy, familiar, solid. The stuff reaches down into the ground to become what it is - there of course is something to be read in that - isn't there?

So when I saw that row of generous slices of chocolate beetroot cake, it went on my mental list of baking ambitions and showed up on the table a few weeks later. I served it to a couple of special friends, still warm, and the room was mostly quiet whilst it was consumed. It was a small event on a Sunday evening and everyone felt full of it. It is velvet and perfect. Vegetables making moisture in baked goods is the way forward.

The recipe, with credit given where credit is due:

chocolate and beetroot cake

the cake:

Roast 2 medium beetroots in foil @ 180C for 90 mins. Leave them to cool. Then mash them however you are able - puree is best, so food processor, blender, or knife/fork/immersion blender combination.

Cream 3 eggs and 1 cup of sugar in with the beetroot puree. Add 1 tsp vanilla (or the insides of a vanilla bean if you're so slowmantically inclined) and 3/4 cup veggie oil (or other preferred oil).

Sift these together:
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup cocoa
and then combine with the wet ingredients.

Pour the batter into a lined cake tin, however you like them to be shaped, and bake for 40 minutes. Check for doneness, the size and shape of the pan will vary baking time. Let it cool for a little while and turn it out onto a plate.

the icing:

I didn't use this exactly. I wanted it to have cream in it so I whipped some cream and added some icing sugar to it, and a melted Lindt bar (100 grams of 70% dark). I may or may not have used a bit of vanilla, and I just add sugar a few tablespoonfuls at a time until I'm happy with the sweetness - I want the flavour of the chocolate to be the main feature, only a hint of sweetness. The beetroot provides so much sweet, and it is quite natural-tasting, mellow and sort of like real cane, it actually tastes a bit like a plant. So yeah, you can do what I did or figure out your own icing. This one, though, was amazing. I spread it on when the cake was still warm so it got a bit melty but in the perfect way - the first slices were definitely the best ones, and it's a whole new (still indulgent) experience the next day.

This is what it looks like.

abundance laboratories

the light that comes through your window in the morning,

and the chance to see it, evokes much gratitude.