Frances's Big Three Oh!

Another 30th this year! :D

..and the birthday girl is Frances!


Recently she's into Tin Tin!
The Adventures of Tin Tin is a series of comic albums created by Belgian artist Remi Georges (1907–1983), who wrote under the pen name of Hergé. The series is one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, with translations published in more than 50 languages and more than 200 million copies of the books sold to date.

I thought, since she likes Tin Tin, why not surprise her with a Tin Tin cake?! :D


To be honest, I have never read Tin Tin books before so I have no idea what is all about! So I asked Joe and googled it to hopefully get some ideas for the cake.


This is the outcome of it :)

 So what do you think? 

Maybe for the professional cake decorators out there will think that I'm not there yet but hey~ this is my 4th time making decorated cakes, I think I did quite well hehe

I have Tin Tin sitting on the suitcases and holding a gift box, Snowy getting excited, an old ship and an old flying plane on the side of the cake.

Effort is totally worth it! To see Frances looked at the cake with excitement and the contented smile is just what I wanted.

After blowing the candle, we didn't want to cut up the cake! haha but after a few minutes of thinking to eat or not.. we decided to cut small pieces of it and trying not to ruin the looks of it!

After that Joe, Frances and I went to one of our favourite restaurant in Perth, which is Balthazar in the city. The food never fails. Excellent wine list and friendly service. 

This is what we had yesterday.

Top left: Pork Crackle, fennel seed, piccalilli

Top right: Freshly shucked oysters. lime, coriander, chilli

Bottom left: Bresola, persimmon, ricotta, balsamic

Bottom right: mushroom, goats cheese, farro, truffle

 Entree is just superb. Pork crackles has nice textures, nicely salted. Oysters was fresh and delicious. Bresola was excellent! I love the saltiness of Bresola with the sweetness of persimmons. Wow.. just packed full of flavour and surprises me.

Top left: Palate cleanser : lemon sorbet

Top right: Pork, jamon, black pudding, scallops, cherry mustard

Bottom left: Duck breast, zuchini, tamarillo, buckwheat, pickled beans and dill

Bottom right: Beef fillet, mushroom, smoked potato, creme fraiche

I have tried all meat and they were all wonderfully cooked! moist, tender, juicy, flavoursome. 

Wow.. impeccable. I had the Duck Breast and what I really love is actually the spinach at the bottoom! It soaked up the juice of the duck breast and the spinach just so soft and juicy and the taste is just awesome!! Love it!

As for Dessert, Joe and I had the Date pudding, caramel popcorn ice cream. Delicious! 

The only down side, the popcorns keep sticking onto my teeth!

and Frances had the Salted caramel with a brightly lit candle. :) 

Have a wonderful 30th Frances! Good luck in everything! :D