Reflecting back, I have great memories of regular Sunday lunches at my grandparents in Ngaruawahia. With life being so busy during the week my grandfather made a special effort to ensure he brought together all of his family to share in the weeks adventures over a roast lunch. As a child, it wasn't just my grandfathers cooking I looked forward to (although he loved his cooking and made the best chowder in the world), but more about seeing my cousins once again to play another friendly game of league on the front lawn or whatever else we had planned to do that afternoon and see what eventuated from there.
Although those memories were created with a Sunday roast, I have many more over a simple plate of mince that my aunty used to be renown for. Yip there was no one in the world who could whip up a pot of mince like my Aunty Raina and feed the millions who used to visit her and her whanau when they lived in Ngaruawahia. Her house used to have a huge front lawn and as a child I would play for hours with my cousins.
As the family grew, everyone got older, my whanau continued to have regular dinners or lunch's where we all came together to share a meal and discuss the affairs of the world. It continued, even when parts of the family ventured to Australia to build a better life for themselves or when the older passed away. Those get togethers have remained strong, and an integral part of my whanau. In fact, just in the past week there have been 3 instances that occurred, whether it be planned or unplanned, a huge crowd or just a few people and all went away happy.
I have to be honest though, there is nothing in the world that beats the sound of children playing and people laughing. It's that very reaction that I treasure. That I love. Knowing that although the stresses of life may be strong for some, for that moment, that event, those stresses are forgotten and people are happy.
Anyway, back to baking which was my original idea and although my latest creation was for a good friend Dora Lester - actually, that's a lie, it's for Dora's children as a gift to their father this weekend. Anyway I felt compelled to sway off the beaten track slightly. I mean baking is food and there are many instances where I have baked a cake for one of the many get togethers.
As a child, baking was my introduction to cooking and the very first thing I made was a chocolate cake. Well, the One Egg Chocolate Sponge from the Edmonds Cookbook to be exact. I was 7 when I first attempted that recipe and it has stayed with me all this time. I do make it every now and again, however my regular chocolate cake comes from an old secret recipe that was passed onto me from my aunty. Although she has passed away now, she used to make this cake in a 20cm size and freeze loads of it down for when we would visit or needed her chocolate cake fix. My sister Tanya used to be addicted to this cake, so it wasn't a surprise if we would call into Tanya's for a visit and out would come a perfect chocolate cake with ganache dripping from it's top.
Dora's cake is my aunties chocolate cake recipe with cream cheese frosting and chocolate waves. The picture really doesn't give it justice at all, and I really must invest in a camera of my own. I'm sure my husband is getting slightly annoyed that I keep asking to use is iphone.
This cake is huge (13 inches x 4 inches) so there is a bit of work that went into it. So baking the cake on Wednesday night, then filling the 4 layers with the same cream cheese frosting the next morning. In fact I started at 5.45 am yesterday morning for the filling and frosting and had to do a little karakia to ensure I had all the frosting ingredients.... eeeek!!. Luckily I did and I'm happy with the finished result and I know Dora and her children were happy with it too :-)
Next week I'm doing another cake for the same family so thinking of that design will be an adventure for me this weekend.
Have a great day!!
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