Lippy on a Pig

Happy Happy days as Spoutie (Amanda) came to visit us in Honkers. Here is a snappie of us at Stanley Markets, courtesy of the lovely Tim and the new camera. I was so sad to wave Spoutie off, as there is nothing as good in life, as an old friend.

The new frontier zooms into view and I know there will be many new friends made here that I would soon call old friends. But for the moment I am sad to wave Spoutie off. Spoutie on the other hand did not look back at my waving frenzy on the pier as she is off on a 5 star kayaking adventure out of Phuket….

Ok to task. A fantastic lady that I knew in Sydney, Anna, has lived in Discovery Bay for quite a few years now and when she talks about Hong Kong, her eyes sparkle. So she qualified as my local. Now Anna’s baking skills probably outweigh mine (especially given I seem to lack patience in any form). And when I saw the words ‘separate’ and ‘squeeze the pith’ I should have proceeded with caution, but my Aries determination was blinding. The challenge, A Layered Lime and Coconut Cake. To add to the challenge I decided to serve it for morning tea with my Aunt and Uncle who are visiting for the weekend. My Aunt is a great cook. The recipe called for lime juice to soften the coconut for an hour….mmm I gave it a Saturday night classic dry white hour, which was probably more like 20 mins. The coconut could have been softer! My second deviation from normal cooking common sense was that the cake tins were squashed on the one oven rack in my new oven. This meant they were on a slope. What happens to cake mixture on a slope? By now my layers now looked like skateboard ramps.

Now the icing is really simple – lime segments, lime juice and icing sugar. I managed to get tiny lime bits all over the kitchen and only make enough icing for half a cake….at this point Scott comes in (and for all those who are paired with or have been out with an Australian male, you

may agree they are not renown for their verbal sensitivity). Scott’s comment at this point, when the icing is in short supply, the pressure is mounting with the visitors and lime bits are all through my hair, it looks like lipstick on a pig!

Anyway it was glued together at the last minute and I will admit, it didn’t look like something Donna Hay would put on the cover of her magazine but it was delicious. Mouth puckeringly tangy and sweet. I used tiny Thai limes to send Spoutie off on her Phuket holiday with a zing. And for the record, Scott has been back for several helpings, which I have taken as a retraction on his lipstick on a pig comment.