“It has been more than a month, you know.”

I looked up from my bowl of noodles, head to one side, an expression on my face that could possibly be interpreted as “No, really?” or “I’m not hearing you right, am I?” or “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that right so you repeat yourself, because truly, it can’t be so.”

He nodded, a slice of pork parcel poised between his chopsticks.

“Since your last post. November 3rd. I checked just the other day.”

My forehead grew furrows. It can’t have been. It was only the other day that…

“Focaccia. You made it for my lunch and brought it to the picnic. I hope it isn’t because… well… I like that you blog. So please don’t stop, ok?”

And, like that, I realised that it truly had been a month. A flurry of weddings and birthdays and eight-to-eight work days where large grey folders full of documents had travelled on the bus with me and home to my desk and then back into work again, but this time with coloured tabs and highlighted paragraphs. A month where my feet have barely touched the ground, for reasons both thrilling and mundane. A month in which I settled down to dinner with my family for the first time in weeks, only to be laughed at by my mother.

“Ahhh Cheh!” she said, in between her laughing and pretence at swotting me about the head “Good thing I bring you to Cairns, otherwise we will never see you!”

A month in which emails trickled across the internet. “I miss you! I never see you anymore!” and “I’m so busy. It’s been months… maybe we could lunch? If I am able to get away?” and emails from readers whose comments make me laugh titled “What gives?” and containing sad internet tears at the possibility of a blogging demise.

There were posts written. Oh yes there were! But they were sad. And tired. And disgruntled. And uninspired. And that is not who I am, and that is not what onebitemore is about. So they were discarded with hopes of maybe-tomorrow-I’ll-write-something-more-like-me.

And then I pissed off to Cairns and came back again with a stinger in my stride (an inch above the back of my left knee in case you were curious), a peeling set of shoulders (strangely, courtesy Manly and not Cairns at all) and stories to tell you. Oh! The stories!

So I am back, and with cake! For all of you.

And I’m sorry, dear internet. I didn’t mean to be away for quite so long.

honey & lavender cake

you will need:

200g butter
½C natural yoghurt
¼C + ¾C cream
½C + 2tbs honey
2tbs lavender buds
2 eggs
¼C sugar
1¾C self raising flour
½tsp baking powder

how to do it:

1. Snip seven or eight buds off your mother’s lavender bush. Pick the petals off carefully and set these aside. Run your fingers down along the stem to remove the buds. Sniff your fingers and then shove them under the Bean’s nose. She will say you smell like old ladies and soap.

2. Cube your butter and let it soften slightly at room temperature. Or you could let it soften first, and then cube it. I won’t judge you either way.

3. Tip it in a bowl with the yoghurt, cream, ½ cup of honey and the lavender buds. Beat with an electric mixer til it all comes together. Don’t worry if it looks like a mess. It will be happy eventually, and if not immediately, then definitely after the flour is added.

4. Beat the eggs and sugar into the mixture. If it wasn’t looking messy before, it will now.

5. Sift the flour and baking powder into your messy mixture and fold together. Everything will start looking like cake batter now. Hooray!

6. Grease a 25cm round tin, preheat your oven to 160C (fan forced) and bake for an hour. Check it at 45 minutes to see if the cake is baked. The best way to do this is with a skewer.

7. Wait til the cake is cool-ish (warm to touch is ok) then turn it out onto a cake rack to cool completely. Slice it in half horizontally.

8. Whip the remaining cream up with the remaining honey and slather it in between the layers of cake. Top with a simple runny icing (I used icing sugar diluted with a bit of orange juice for a bright, citrussy finish) and the reserved lavender petals (which your mother, if she is anything like mine, will pick off because “They’re from the garden Cheh! Why are they on my cake?”)

(served as an emergency “Did you maybe want to pop in for some cake, seeing as that Sugar Hit was an absolute disaster and I kind of don’t want the night to end just yet” cake, with wonderful results)

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