No, the gateau is for misplacing his helmet last week...

I'm not very good at farewells.

I tend to get all awkward and be like, "Well, see ya!" *scuffs floor with shoe while trying to not say twee farewell-type things or get all emotional*

So I often bake things instead. Baking being the international language of hello/happy birthday/farewell/I'm sorry/love you/pretty much anything else you can think of having an international language for that revolves around baked goods. Last night, I made a Black Forest Cake and chocolate trees to accompany it to farewell one of my bosses (who was also my favourite boss, but shhhh, don't tell anyone!). She's moving on to another job, and some of the other people in the office and I had been talking about what we could do as a farewell.

Going out to lunch was one thing.

Cake also seemed like a good plan.

Cake is almost always a good plan. Unless it leads to peasants deciding to cut your head off when you say things like, "Let them eat cake." But thankfully, that sort of thing is rare in Australia.

After making dinner last night, I set about baking the cake. Nothing too strenuous, just chocolate cake. Mix, bake, cool, cut, fill with cherries and jam, ice and apply trees. The trees are deceptively simple to make. Just melt the chocolate and then drizzle the chocolate around until it looks tree-shaped. It was a crazy amount of fun, and I love how each one is really, really different. And you get chocolate all over the place, but that's fun too.

Took the cake to work without the trees applied to it this morning (and only approached one corner like a rally driver until I remembered, "ICED CAKE IN A COOL BAG ON THE BACK SEAT! ARRRGHHH!" and drove really sedately after that). After lunch, T and I sorted out the cake and took it into the office of the boss who's leaving.

It was pretty well received. But cake usually is! :D

Still doesn't make farewells any easier though. I know she'll still be working in the area and we can catch up, but I will miss her being at work. She was loads of fun to work with, and I learnt a huge amount from her.