Birthday cakes. Baking. Delicious!

There's one constant aspect of my life I haven't really documented. Baking. I really like making cake, although I no longer eat it.  I've been baking cakes two or three times a week for the last 7 years or so, to take to the stable yard where my horse lives. It is devoured by the girls that work at the yard, and owners and visitors alike. This week however, they have had to fend for themselves, and here's why.

It's going to be my lovely lodger's birthday, and in the office where she works, if it's your birthday, you're obliged to take cake. She asked me if I would bake for her, as most people buy cakes, and she rather fancied taking something home made. So I asked her what cake she would like, and she requested (pictured above), lemon drizzle cake, apricot and sultana cake, and pistachio cake. AND a simnel cake as well! I can only assume there are a lot of people in her office.

The pistachio cake I don't make often as it is eyewateringly expensive, but it looks so good, with the pistachios showing both green and red. They're mixed into a sugar and lemon juice syrup and poured onto the top of the cake.

The simnel cake is still cooling in its tin. Very early tomorrow morning I will put the marzipan top on it. This is a fruit cake with a layer of marzipan in the middle. You can see a little bit of it that's bubbled up to the edge, but that won't matter.

And here is the mighty tower of cake, ready to be loaded into the car and taken to what I hope is an appreciative audience tomorrow! There will be one more container with the simnel cake in it, of course.
And for the stables? Well my lodger also has a horse at the yard, so any cake left over will go there with her on Saturday morning. And if there isn't any left, I will go to my default setting of Victoria sponge, which I find the easiest and most consistent of all!