Funny story. Regular readers of 3limes might be familiar with the quintessential Uganda Cake story. It was a sober warning to many not to trust a cake that comes from the hands of a Ugandan Patisserie, no, far better to bake your own. Well as I mentioned just yesterday my sweet girls had made me a chocolate cheese cake, showed it to me at breakfast time and then we spent most of the day in anticipation of the wonderful after school treat that was to come.
Princess carefully sliced three portions, placed them on plates and solemnly carried them to the dining room table. They looked at each other with shifty eyes, one of them shrugged; I think I heard a “shhh”.
Then we took a bite and the truth was out, the cat was out of the bag, the jig was up, the spell was broken.
“This tastes like onion.” I said, trying not to sound too surprised.
“The texture is lovely, the chocolate so smooth and yummy but after the first hit of cocoa on the tongue something is wrong.” I said, trying to sound intrigued.
Turns out there was quite a story behind the cake.
In order to make the cheese cake they had to ask Sarah our amazing beyond words house keeper to buy cream cheese for them while they were at school. Princess handed over her pocket money and off Sarah went, to four different shops (this is Kampala) on four different bodas and finally found some. Only the cream cheese she found was cream cheese with onions and chives. Sarah, not being familiar with chocolate cheesecake, let alone the hummingbird cafe Chocolate cheesecake, had no idea what cream cheese even was.
The girls immediately saw the problem but were too embarrassed to tell Sarah that she had erred in her choice of cream cheese, since she has gone to so much trouble. So they made it anyway. Two thirds regular cream cheese (that we already had in the fridge) and one third onion and chives.
And let me tell you: chocolate might go well with chilli, orange, or even rosemary, so I hear, but it does not marry well with the sharp sour taste of onion.
We need to wait until Sarah takes her day off on Saturday before we can toss it in the bin.
Handsome Husband laughed. “Looks like you got Ugandan Birthday Cake too!’
3limes 
Haha! Great story…shame though…after all that work! x
Classic – I am howling with laughter at this one!
this was even funnier reading it in backwards order, with the onion cake story coming before the anticipation of said cake;)
happy birthday samantha:))
But how sweet that your girls did not want to make Sarah feel bad and that they appreciated how much trouble she’d gone to!
I absolutely love that your girls’ instincts told them to spare Sarah’s feelings over a less than perfect birthday cake for you. It shows how much they know you!
At our house I have deemed that a birthday is not over until there is a cake and song. This was my only way of actually training a family of boys to actually recognize my birthday! And as much as I love chocolate, how much a better gift to see how your girls handled the situation. It made me well up!
Well, they say you can’t have your cake and eat it too!
Now to find the Uganda cake post!