Birthday boy

This time exactly one year ago I was pottering around at home, wondering when my baby boy was going to come out into the world and meet us. Little did I know that later that evening we would be greeting him. My baby boy turns 1 today!

We had a hastily organised little celebration for him in the local park yesterday which I think he enjoyed, despite needing a little nap in the middle of it! He got to show off his new walking skills, as well as waving, clapping and doing his little dance to the music playing. Where has my baby gone?!!


His big sisters are always very excited to have a birthday in the family to celebrate, but particularly for their beloved baby, who they fuss over like mother hens! Of course they wanted to open his presents ASAP in the morning and burnt themselves out with excitement before it was time for the party! The things most anticipated were 1. the cake (isn't that always the way) and 2. the lucky dip we'd organised. I remember absolutely loving lucky dips when I was a child - the anticipation of putting your hand into the box or bag, picking something out and unwrapping it was huge! What a pity things don't excite us so much as adults!

As usual at our birthday celebrations I didn't take nearly enough photos, or rather not the right sort of photos. Lots of blurry group shots with kids running around but noone looking at the camera, but not so much the carefully planned details, like the loving wrapped lucky dip parcels being eagerly handed from one child to another (all chosen and wrapped by the big girl), and none of the CAKE! It astounds me that I can take so long making and decorating the cake then forget all about photographing it! So please forgive the dodgy zoomed-in detail shot.

It's become tradition that the kids all have a teddy cake on their first birthday - the one from this great kids cake cookbook. So here's what it's supposed to look like below. I used a bit more cocoa in the butter icing so he was a chocolate brown bear - which satisfied the chocoholics in this family.




And my chocolate apple cake is also a tradition with us now. The recipe was found by my mum when the big girl was little and we were hunting for egg-free cake recipes. It's a bit more special than our everyday egg-free chocolate cake. It's a good cake to cut into shapes as it holds its form well, plus I can kid myself that it's a little bit healthy as it contains apple (just don't think about all that butter icing on top ;-)



Chocolate apple cake

400g stewed apple
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
125g butter or margarine
1 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 cups self-raising flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 180c. Lightly grease and line a shallow 16 x 26cm pan. Place the apple, bicarb and milk in a saucepan and stir over a low heat for 2-3 minutes. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar, add the vanilla. Sift over the flour and cocoa and gently fold together. Fold through the warm apple mixture.

Spoon into the prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes then turn onto a cake rack to cool completely.


Happy Birthday Mr Milo!