This cake was my contribution to the Aussies Take The Cake collaboration for Australia Day 2016.

When I was a child, we would regularly make a family trip to Goolwa (on the South Australian coast) to visit my Nana and Pa. On the side of the Strathalbyn/Goolwa Road, not too far from Currency Creek, there is an “Aboriginal Canoe Tree”. My brother and I would eagerly wait to catch a glimpse of this beautiful piece of history as we drove past. The plentiful river red gums around the Murray River provided perfect bark for the building of canoes; a practice which required patience, and skill. The Aboriginal people would remove the bark from the trees by first cutting the required size and shape through the bark to the hardwood core. The bark was slowly prised from the tree and the slab lowered to the ground. Small fires were lit on the inside of the bark to dry up moisture, and the ends of the canoe would be held together with handwoven rope. Although there are still many examples of “canoe trees” throughout Australia; farming, forestry and development mean that their numbers are dwindling and those that remain need to be protected.

Every submission to this collaboration was amazing, you can view them all on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/Aussies-Take-The-Cake-2016-Australia-Through-History-1534756886851469/