This weekend we celebrated my husband’s 40th birthday and despite spending the majority of our time with our 12-year-old who was about to write exams we managed to fit in a celebratory lunch with his parents. I took the chance to use things I had at home to create a soft blue and grey tablescape adding flowers out of our garden and the centrepiece – the bday cake!
Luckily the alliums had popped this week so off they went into the bud glasses along with grey and white lavender which I always have plenty of, statice, some cornflowers that were about to go over and some lace flowers that are dominating my garden at the moment. The chocolate lace was a bit more purple than what I wanted but I couldn’t resist adding them in.
Many years ago a friend taught me that often the back side of a cork placemat can be just as pretty as the front and for this paired back look I did just that. It has always worked well for me and it has meant I have never bought a similar replacement; in fact I often favour the cork side! Into my collection of satin, velvet, check and sparkly ribbons I went to find some pretty blue to tie around my white napkins that sat on my plates.
What fun it was to have the cake on our table for lunch – showing the boys what was in store but also keeping top of mind that this celebration was about the birth of someone we loved. The yoghurt cake is a crowd-pleaser that I found on social media years ago, I often dress it with fresh fruit like blueberries or edible flowers which are my favourite. The recipe couldn’t be easier and uses a 175ml yoghurt tub instead of measuring cups so it is fun for children to help with. You can use any yoghurt you like; I prefer grandadilla while my best friend swears by vanilla, but I have hung on to a yoghurt container for this recipe and choose to buy a bigger tub as we always have yoghurt in our fridge. Add ingredients in this order: 3 yoghurt cups of self-raising flour, 2 of castor sugar, 1 of oil and 1 of yoghurt. Break in 3 large eggs and a pinch of salt, mix well for 2-3 minutes and then bake in a ring tin, bundt tin or muffin pan at 160 degrees Celsius for 1 hour (reduce the time for muffin tray). Make sure your tin is well greased before adding the mixture but once cool and out of the tin you can ice it with 2 yoghurt cups of icing sugar and a heaped tablespoon of yoghurt. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHAUN!
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