Bouncing Bobs and Birthday Cake

Start with good ingredients ... 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

Recently my sister asked me if I could make a christening cake for my new niece, and of course I said yes! Any opportunity to make cake is a good one! However, this cake required decorating and as a scientist, I don't do "pretty" very well. But, I thought I ought to give it a go for my sister and therefore, I needed to practice!

Apply liberally ...  
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

 


I had a rough plan in my head what I wanted to do for the proper cake, but for practice I decided to make a double layer flour less hazelnut chocolate cake. Except I couldn't find hazelnut meal, so I used almond meal. And I wasn't confident of the cake holding up, so I might have added a quarter cup of flour. So maybe it could be called a mostly flour less chocolate almond cake! The scientist in me loves a good experiment.

Dust ... 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

The cakes were made (seriously, this was the easiest part of the whole process) and ready to be decorated. I'd read somewhere that you can attach fondant icing to a cake by covering the cake in melted jam or butter cream. As I really wanted the fondant to stay put, I used both! I also used cherry jam and chocolate butter cream between the two cakes. One very important lesson learnt here was that cakes should be trimmed and squared prior to putting a layer between them. Let's just say things started to get messy from this point onwards. 

Smother ... 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

The next step in the process was to cover the whole thing in that awful white icing. I maintain my stance on that icing, it tastes awful and detracts from a beautiful tasting cake, but it is what is used to decorate, so I thought I'd give it a go. Driven by my desire to reduce the impact of the icing as much as possible, I had rolled it quite thin, which as I found out, was a bad idea. The fondant seemed to dry and crack, and while we got it over the cake, the corners were a bit on the messy side.

Layer ... 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

Still, the icing had one advantage, I could use it to cover up these errors. Carl decided to join me at this stage as we tried out some some different icing dyes. Soon both our hands and the bench were multicoloured and there was icing sugar everywhere! But we did have a pile of different coloured fondants, and Carl was soon crafting letters to decorate the cake. Meanwhile I was crafting what I thought of as "racing stripes" to cover the corners!


As it turned out, Carl and I were due to race (in a completely non-competitive manner) the next day and had decided to take the cake with us to share. We had decided to decorate the cake in honour of the 5 Bobs, who I race with. This turned out to be a brilliant stroke of genius as one of the Bobs was having his birthday over the weekend!  

And begin to decorate! 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

Cake in tow, the next day we headed up to Bird in Hand winery to participate in Port Adelaide Cycling Club's second Pyscho Sportiff of the season. The course would definitely live up to it's name, with two sections of gravel road and some nasty hills. But there would be coffee, cake and sausages after!

Cover ... 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

The Bobs had planned a team of six, however our resident hard man, Chewie, had decided to take a well earned rest. The day before he had just completed the Ride for Repat, a 7 day, 930km fundraising ride for the Repatriation General Hospital in Adelaide. Have to say a big congratulations to him for completing this ride successfully for the second time.

... and voilà - Birthday Cake! 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

That left 5 Bobs, well actually, 2 Bobs, Brett, David and myself, but we all count as Bobs. I was Captain on the road, which turned out to be a good idea when our actual team captain, Rob Cannon had to pull out after one lap due to a sore back. But this was all to come and prior to the start I waved the cake under everybody's noses as motivation for a strong race. Personally, I think I need to come up with new motivation as I think most of the Bobs, including me, were feeling pretty second hand for one reason or another.

Still we lined up, with Recon Bob 1 (David) leading us out so we didn't get lost immediately (or detour up to the winery). David had previously provided us with quite a detailed route breakdown, however all I remembered was the word hills, and I was pleasantly surprised when the road to the first turn seemed fairly reserved in the up department. 
 
This wasn't to last. Directly after the first turn the road headed up and it was here that I discovered just how poorly riding my recent mountain biking adventures had prepared me for road racing. I also regretted not being able to get on my road bike prior to the race as I struggled to remember how the gears worked. Not the best thing heading up a hill.

Ready to Roll 
(photo c/ Tina's Cycling Photos)

Apparently I wasn't the only one struggling, though I sure couldn't tell at the time. Both Brett and Rob W flew up the hill, dancing on the pedals and in Brett's case, swinging that suitcase he calls a saddle bag from side to side! Soon I was yelling at them, telling them to come back and push the rest of us up if they had that much energy!

We made it up the first couple of hills and managed to stay together fairly well. Our second turn for the day put us on a scenic gravel road, however there was no time for photos! The road soon headed back up and the gravel added an extra dimension to the climb. It was necessary to gasp for breath and watch where you were going at the same time, it's amazing I remember to turn the pedals!

It was at this point in time that the Boss, Rob C, started realising that maybe a dodgy back and bumpy dirt roads weren't the best combination. Soon he was twisting this way and that in the saddle, trying to ease his discomfort as he valiantly struggled on. We kept an eye on him and it was soon decided that the Boss would not be accompanying us for our second lap.

Starting to head up 
(photo c/ Tina's Cycling Photos)

The gravel ended without us having any major mishaps (a lot of teams seemed to be having all sorts of trouble on this section) and we turned onto a flying down hill. I think we were all grinning as we hit speeds in the order of 50km/hr heading down the hill. What we didn't know at the time was that we had to turn left onto more gravel about halfway down the hill! After some careful braking we all made it around the corner and onto the pot luck pootle!

Actually, it was fairly difficult to pootle down this seriously potholed road, the gradient meant you ended up picking up speed and trying to dodge pot holes all at the same time. I wasn't all that successful at this and I coped some fairly heavy blows along this section, but at least I remained upright. I think the boys also took a bit of a beating, though I think the Boss pulled out all his mountain biking skills and missed them all! It was ridiculously fun though, something about flying down a slightly sketchy road trying to dodge hazards just makes me grin!

Powering down the finishing straight!
(photo c/ Tina's Cycling Photos)

This put us on the home straight, so we went into the big chain ring and powered home. Rob W wasn't all that keen on another lap, however he decided to stick with us as we dropped the Boss off and headed out for another pounding. It was more of the same, however a few mechanicals challenged us with David's chain dropping off a couple of times and my bike getting stuck in the big chain ring halfway up one of the major hills. Suffice to say, I plan to have words with my bike.



We made it back to the finish, narrowly avoiding being taken out by a caravan that decided it required the whole of the dirt road. Garmins switched off, we proceeded to consume coffee and sausages as we waited for everyone else to finish.

Once everyone was in, envelopes of recognition were handed out, as well as a few bottles of wine. We'd let slip to club president, Marky G, that Rob W was having a birthday, so everyone sang happy birthday. This seemed a fair exchange for a piece of cake! I was pleased to have a lineup of people wanting cake and from the feed back I received, it sounded like it was a winner!

The day was nicely rounded out with coffee at the Bird in Hand winery, overlooking the vines, followed by some wine tasting. Any race is awesome that ends in wine!

A big thanks to everybody who helps host these events, without the volunteers, none of us would get a chance to have this much fun! Now, onto the Christening Cake!

Ah, the serenity (photo c/ Carl Purczel)

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