scrabble?

So the celebration came and went, and the guests of honour were suitably chuffed. I believe happy tears were witnessed. Yay for me. Apparently I exceeded all expectation by my little sis (which I must say is quite the triumph for this somewhat anally retentive broad), with delivery of their surprise engagement cake.

A three day project, grabbing snippets of time to work where possible. Three little sous chefs lending little help by way of labour, only entertainment (#1 making baking paper butterflies, #2 snipping any piece of baking paper he could find and eating ingredients, #3 sleeping through most of the prep and making general chit chat when awake while chomping on sultanas). After trying here to find a scrabble board for some authentic decorating, and failing, I sent out the call to my awesome mothers group which brought home the goods. No standard edition. Vintage baby. For free. {free = box of chocolates}

Cake construction halted considerably on Friday arvo when we lost power for two hours and bride-to-be was in danger of celebrating her engagement without said cake.. thankfully power was restored and I worked as fast as my hands would allow to make the deadline. Which left all of ten minutes to go from drab to {semi}fab for the bash. While in transit to the party venue, the heavens opened as forecast, and getting the cake from car to restaurant meant a slightly rain splattered one {photographic evidence above}.

The cake began lovely and moist, but sitting in a commercial fridge for a few hours did it no favours. I should have asked the kitchen to take it out and let it stand for an hour before dessert, to bring it back to room temp. It was a little dry for me. I have to say I was quite disappointed because when I tasted the bits I cut off to level it before assembly, it just melted in my mouth it was so moist. Everyone commented on how delicious it was. Even if they were lying, I was just happy that Courtney & Carl were rapt with it.

The edible shortbread scrabble pieces surrounding the cake spelt out a few words they had to figure out, which was fun to watch. I promise to share this beautiful shortbread recipe with you soon.

While the mood lighting in the restaurant created a beautiful ambiance for a beautiful occasion, it also meant it created totally shit lighting for photography. Thems the breaks. More of the celebration to come.