Some birthdays are show stoppers with meaningful presents and surprises that are so happy they bring a tear to the eye. Some birthdays, just slowly sort of slip on by. A tiny reprieve in a normal week. It’s never meant like that, but occasionally that’s just how things fall, (well for the big people anyway.)

Not for this birthday though for him. No, no. For this birthday I was jumping out of my skin with excitement on giving a little piece of paper.

No flashy expensive pieces to gather dust on a mantel. No clothing vouchers and stiff napkined dinners, because seriously it’s not our style.

What he did have was an afternoon and evenings trek up a mountain to watch a sunset with a lunar eclipse. Followed by a little star gazing. An opportunity to take an obscene amount of photos and maybe, just maybe throw a birthday wish on a shooting star.

And in the mean time, we had cake…well, there will always, (always) be cake.

 The Lamington Cake was revisited…and yes sticky fingers, VERY sticky fingers. The temptation was a little too much for her.

Lamington Cake

125g butter

3 eggs

150g (2/3 cup) sugar

2 tsp vanilla

225g (1 1/2 cups) s/r flour

50g (1/2 cup) desiccated coconut

125mls (1/2 cup) milk

******

1 can condensed milk

50g cocoa

Cream butter and sugar. Add in vanilla, beaten eggs, and milk together than fold in dry ingredients. Bake in a greased and lined spring form pan (approx 23cm) at 180C for about 35-40 minutes. Bake until golden in colour.

While cake is still hot, leave it in the cake tin, prick it all over with a skewer or fork then pour on the condensed milk mixture. (Whisk together in a bowl, condensed milk and cocoa together beforehand.)

Leave cake to soak up mixture, occasionally bringing the condensed milk back to the centre to soak in at the top a little more. Once room temperature, pop into the fridge for a couple of hours (or over night- you want as much of the condensed milk soaked in as possible.) Take the cake out of the tin and cover in desiccated coconut.