so. the night before my birthday, i tackled the cha cha cha. but the day before my birthday, ana came ’round with little lucia and littler astrid — apparently it made a big difference to be stuck between four different walls with her two under two? — and i figured the least i could do was ply them with cake.

ana has some strange rules about food. stuff like, you can’t mix fruit with chocolate, or fruit with anything actually: fruitcake is totally out. so it took a little longer than usual at the zumbo counter, trying to figure out what might be acceptable. in the end, i picked a sort-of chocolatey one, and a sort-of fruity one, and hoped that it would all work out.

the cheech and chong (descended from the quasimodo from earlier in the year) is a crisp pastry shell with a frangipane-and-rhubarb filling — all at once sweet and tart — topped with a great wobbly disc of blowtorched chiboust. this delicate union of creme patissiere and creme chantilly was thoroughly infused with the fresh taste of pear, and i wanted more. MORE. and as it turns out, there were no issues with the fruit and pink chocolate garnishes, because maeve swiped them all before anyone else could.

the malt ‘n’ teaser had been recommended to me on several occasions, and finally i bit. but there is not so much to bite with this one: it’s layer upon soft layer of lush malty, chocolatey, vanillary… stuff. [well, ok, because you need to know, i have just this morning made a special trip up the road to read the little placard: malt bavarois, vanilla cremeaux, chocolate sabayon.] even the vaguely cakey bits — malt dacquoise and praline feullitine — are moist and sticky with syrupy goodness. truly, you could eat the whole thing just by pressing it between your tongue and the roof of your mouth… and i believe i did. it was lovely and comforting, quite the opposite of cha cha cha (though one is not better than the other; you will just have to decide what you deem appropriate behaviour from your dessert).

and the cupcakes? from the old skool bakery across the road. the kid chose them, one for herself, and one for lucia, even though her one memory of lucia is that lucia likes to poke her in the eye. and this is how it worked out: she ate her cupcake, bided her time, and then ate all the frosting and three chocolate buttons off the other one, because, as it turns out, lucia is still too young for pink icing.

ana loved both the fruity one and the chocolatey one, and unexpectedly, maybe even liked the fruity one just that little bit more. me? i grew a little older, and a little bit fatter, with an unprecedented three zumbo cakes under my belt.