A milestone birthday

Yesterday was my grandmother's 90th birthday (nope that wasn't a typo, I did mean nine-zero). She arrived here three days ago with my aunt and my dad to come and visit us and meet the baby. Unfortunately, she slipped while walking in Madrid and when we took her to the hospital on Monday afternoon, they had to admit her straightaway because she fractured her hip. I had planned to celebrate her special birthday by booking a table for all of us to have dinner at Tai-Pan, an excellent Chinese restaurant in Marbella, but because she was stuck in hospital, we decided to bake her a cake instead and take it to her so she could celebrate there.

Not wanting to experiment on such an important celebration- we made a moist chocolate cake from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2 with a butter cream frosting and added on some fresh strawberries. When I went to buy the candles from our favorite pastry shop D'Alicia in Guadalmina, the server was surprised that I had asked for a 9 and a 0 and made sure that she understood right because she said no one had ever bought a candle for a 90th birthday. The cake was a success - moist and chocolatey and more importantly, it made my grandmother smile. Happy Birthday Lola!