My Brother's Last Teen Year (Traditions Of March #2)

We all love our siblings. There is no doubt about it (nodotabotit as my brother likes to say) that a lot of the time, you can share the world with them, even more than your parents and that is totally normal (mummy, daddy you never heard this from me! )

But of course then there are the times that siblings fight – I am talking from the stupid hair yanking to sock hitting to pillow fights to more grown up ‘angry discussions’ like taking too long in the bathroom in the morning and sharing the car

I love my Bhaiya more than this can you believe it!

When it comes down to the crux of the matter, a sibling is one of your best friends and you don’t even realise it. You appreciate them, you hate them, you get jealous of them, you wonder about them and you learn from them. And that is the relationship that my Bhaiya (*Hindi word for brother) and I have always had (though he has never been jealous of me )

What is so great about my brother? And why am I being so kind and honest to and about him in this post instead of embarrassing him like a normal sister with any right frame of mind would do?

Lots of dates boggle the mind

1. I am saving his whole collection of stupidity-captured-by-a-click for his 21st – My brother claims he is not even coming to his 21st…
2. He has been really nice lately – my brother is a busy almost-man now – When I do see him, which is not so often anymore due to his social commitments and uni and I totally get that, he is really sweet and nice so I guess I kind of owe him one
   

   The things I mix together to owe him one

3. He is turning 19 – Now I don’t know if he has realised this but this is his last year of teendom – notice I called him almost-man? That is because he is still a teen! I must not hyperventilate, I must not, I will not! Next year will mark his goodbyes to late night popcorn movie sessions (without the popcorn, he is weird) and toodle-loos to putt-putt golf as he enters *dun dun DUN* his twenties… but let us worry about that next year shall we?

To stop hyperventilating it is recommended one eats this batter...

Here is a secret bro: You know how you say I am not old enough to turn 17? That you cannot imagine me 17? Well guess what, I CANNOT IMAGINE YOU HAVING YOUR LAST YEAR AS A TEEN!

So this is on my Bhaiya’s official to do list this year as a way of exiting the beautiful yet admittedly, a little moody, teenage years with a bang!

I can bribe you anytime birthday boy...

1. Eat with a large thick restaurant wiping cloth stuffed inside your collar to avoid food drips on your clothes
2. Take your amazingly wonderful awesome sister (ahem, any guesses who I am referring to ) to a fun day at some carnival and go on every.single.ride.
3. Joy ride with your P’s on a race track
4. Awkwardly give a girl a red rose on Valentines Day (you have next year!)
5. Get stressed about the amount of work you have and have a breakdown (little or fake, it is up to you )
6. Have ma comb your hair and scrub your face one last time like a little boy

So Bhaiya, Happy Birthday was what I was meant to say out of this entire post I suppose. I could not cope if you weren’t there so don’t you dare move out anytime soon you 19 year old you!

I'll lure you back I promise!

You are awesome bro, simply awesome with so much to offer to every person, uni and science lab you ever come across! Go conquer your last teen year in style

And when does the food actually enter the equation besides various photos which have been floating throughout the above?

Like my dad, as tradition dictates, my brother has a staple birthday cake. More like a cake than a pudding but it is I guess called a pudding.

Can you not see the moistness of this pudding/cake or whatever

A very dated pudding.

A Sticky Date Pudding. With warm, drippy butterscotch sauce. And a heaping load of vanilla ice cream all warm and melting, mixing flavours. Yes. He may not be a chocolate boy but like my dad, I make sure that their non-chocolate dishes are celebrated in style. Just like my daddy’s meringue, my first post of this cake last year was long lost in the archives and did not even have pictures. Well I certainly fixed that.

This was the recipe I used. I almost thought I stuffed it up by not adding enough water but the decadently moist cake to enter out of the oven proved me wrong. Thank god it proved me wrong

Hot melt-your-heart butterscotch sauce, thick and dreamy...

I used this awesome recipe. As perfect and dense and beautiful as it was, it is just off the taste of THE sticky date, the one we always eat at GPK, an Italian restaurant staple in my family. I will try good recipe after good recipe until I find the one Bhaiya, even if it takes 50 birthdays

But in the meanwhile, I suppose we will just have to keep making and eating this beautiful piece of delicious, close to perfect sticky date… sigh

If my brother was a cake

Here are just a couple of changes I made to the recipe before I leave you [[to run to your kitchen to make this]]

• I added in a tbs of golden syrup when the eggs and vanilla are added
• I increased the vanilla to 2 tsp
• I increased the number of dates to 280g
• Butter increased to 70g
• The conversion of SRF to plain flour: 1 cup + 1/4 cup plain flour + 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
• When the dates start to soften, squish them lightly to keep releasing the flavour but not so totally disintegrated (you want a dark murky water )
  

  Like this

• Try not to drink the butterscotch sauce like water – please, I am talking from experience

Sorry but I really liked this pic!

Happy Birthday Bhaiya again – I know you enjoyed the cake (2 helpings means a lot to me) but I hope you enjoy your year even more !!!

P.S. Terra of Cafe Terra and Donna of The Sugared Pecan have both awarded me blog awards which is most kind and generous of them – however I will not be acknowledging them till my next post as this post is dedicated to my Bhaiya

About these ads