After much ado about wedding cakes and some mental recovery on both our behalves, Miss Rose and I finally managed to realign our calendars for a spot of Sunday baking. This time we both had wants. Miss Rose wanted to use her newly acquired cloches, I had a saucy cake stand begging for some attention, and with Melbourne temporarily settling on a glorious spring day it seemed only natural to call time for tea.

Summoning our inner ladies of leisure we stuck with tradition in the form of asparagus tarts, chicken, smoked salmon, and cucumber finger sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream, and, of course, tea...

As Miss Rose was "all donged out", our additional sweeties took the form of Delia's delightful preserved ginger cake covered in maple Swiss meringue cream cheese buttercream.

Well I presume it was delightful, because having been absent from TPB-proper for some time I have evidently lost some conditioning and simply couldn't manage a single slice. However, if the spicy aromas wafting from the oven were anything to go by, I imagine it was rather heavenly indeed.

When it came to the finishing touches, while Miss Rose had far greater intentions for her cloched creation, the Swiss meringue buttercream inevitably proved a fickle and near untamable beast, and for the sake of Miss Rose's sanity, let's just leave it that the less said about the cream cheese variety, the better. I suspect we won't be seeing the likes of it again in this town any time soon...

Nonetheless it was lovely getting back in to kitchen TPB, to spend some time enjoying the company of a dear friend at a gorgeous new coffee local, and to feel as though spring is finally on its way. I'm not sure what's next in store for we ladies of TPB, but if the last little while is anything to go by, I suspect it's going to be something rather good...