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I'm someone who really enjoys celebrating my birthday, and in normal circumstances I have lots of little traditions which I spread out over a few weeks. (Or even a whole month back in 2015; where on earth did I find the energy?) There's usually my annual free birthday Nando's, coffees and cupcakes with colleagues, the slumber party at home with my close girlfriends, and a fancy dinner with my parents. I also always seem to fit a few bonus impromptu celebrations - drinks, dinners, cakes - any excuse!

I decided to treat myself by baking a fancy birthday cake - the Beatrix Bakes "Notorious BFC" (Black Forest Cake). Incidentally, Nat from Beatrix is the only non-German baker I'd trust with a Black Forest Cake recipe. Her version comprises layers of light cocoa sponge brushed with kirsch, whipped cream, crème fraîche chocolate mousse, cherry jelly and cherry compote, covered in a chocolate glaze and decorated with chocolate curls. I luckily had a batch of the chocolate mousse in the freezer, as well as gorgeous pitted cherries from Wandin Valley Farms, which reduced the effort required. I started baking the cake the night before my birthday, assembled it and kept it in the fridge overnight, and finished off decorating it in the afternoon. What a treat! The description makes it sound rich but it was really light and airy (like a traditional German BFC, btw).

For the day, Sandra said she'd take care of all the food, (apart from the cake). For breakfast, she made mee swa birthday noodles! This is the traditional Malaysian-Chinese birthday breakfast - with the noodles representing long life and the red mark on the egg representing good fortune. Soooo delicious and warming for breakfast.

For lunch, she organised a delivery of sashimi-quality tuna and salmon from Nosh. She served the salmon as plain sashimi, and marinated the tuna poké style on rice. I hadn't had sushi in ages and it was so lovely!

Sashimi from Nosh

Sandra ordered dinner as well - a delivery from excellent local wine bar Mister Sandrino - but we were too full at dinner time to eat it (and I wanted to save room for cake, haha). So I ate the entrée while we were on the Skype call, and we saved the mains for the next night. The drink of choice was La Crema Monterey 2018 Chardonnay (again a gift from Sandra as she knows I looooove oaky buttery chardonnays), which matched well with Mister Sandrino's cured salmon. This was followed by caaaaake!

I was lucky enough to receive some gorgeous gifts throughout the day! Flowers from Sandra and also from my brother and his girlfriend in Japan, as well as some generous vouchers from friends. The big gift from Sandra was a selection of awesome spa products from Mecca Cosmetica - Drunk Elephant TLC Happi Scalp Scrub, Ren Kelp and Magnesium Body Scrub, Tatcha Luminous Dewy Skin Mask, Posh Peel Pedicure Foot Mask, Ren AHA Smart Renewal Body Serum - so luxurious!

Birthday Flowers

Spa gifts

By sheer coincidence, I received a delivery of mini-gins from Imbue distillery - we follow each other on Instagram and Mel from Imbue kindly sent some gins as a Mothers' Day gift. They happened to arrive on my birthday so I'm claiming it a both a birthday and a Mothers' Day gift - hooray.

The next night we ate the Mister Sandrino dinner - there was cassoulet (so delicious), slow-cooked beef cheek, broccolini, and couscous. It was all really great (especially the cassoulet), and I chose to order from them again for my Dad's lockdown birthday two weeks later, as I liked it so much.

Mister Sandrino Dinner

My great friend An gifted us an "Amaru at Home" experience, which we enjoyed the weekend after my birthday. Some of you may remember that Amaru is one of my favourite high-end dining destinations, so it was such a treat to be able to enjoy it at home! (Even without lockdowns, there's no way that mums of a newborn would be able to get out to a degustation, so having it at home was a special treat). The food was, as expected, incredible. It is one of the more labour-intensive high-end home meals that we've had, so there was quite a lot of popping back and forth from the kitchen to assemble and finish off each course. We actually ate the food in our pyjamas, with a sleeping baby in Sandra's arms, while we binge-watched Masterchef UK: The Professionals. What a world we live(d) in.