This was one the hardest cake I had to make in terms of coming up with the idea. I was supposed to finish the birthday cake by Thursday and by Tuesday afternoon I was still huming and harring and tossing about ideas on what to make. The problem was for me the person I was going to make it for, I didn’t know what he would like or whether he would like a cake at all or how he will take it( It was supposed to be a surprise, My hubby’s friend had asked a while back to make it for this person who was coming here for a literary/religious function from overseas and staying at his place )!!!

So finally I tried to work out in my head what he is involved in and got my hubby to give me some hints too. He is a person very involved in and quite a famous religious and literary orator in our community and well versed in Tamil literary classics of Thiruvalluvar (celebrated Tamil poet and philosopher) and the works of Kambar (medieval Tamil poet and the author of the Tamil Ramayanam). Based on this I finally decided to do a book with a picture of Kambar on it, then I had doubts as to whether he would be happy to cut into picture of a person he has placed on such high esteem. So I decided to do another dummy book with the picture and place it on top of the cake book. The rest of the bits and pieces sort of flowed on from there based on the literary theme.

So here is the final outcome of my war with ideas and my hands. The first cake of the four cakes that I needed to this year before my self imposed rest( which has actually become five cakes instead of four ‘cos It was also on Tuesday that I found out that my hubby’s friend’s(who had asked me to do this cake) lovely wife’s birthday was also on Thursday. So how can I not make one for her too a quick one :-) ( my hands willing !!) A first time I did two cakes in a day , It was a bit daunting. Will post it separately

A full vegetarian chocolate cake, with chocolate filling and covered with butter cream and fondant. By the time I did the painting ( based on a picture of Kambar I found on the net) my hand started playing up, must be the repetitive strokes :-(. The writing means Happy birthday in Tamil.

Hope it was appropriate and you all like it too. Thank you for looking. Sorry the story is a bit lengthy. :-)