Little by little, and also by great leaps
life happened to me, and how insignificant this business is.
These veins carried my blood, which I scarcely ever saw,
I breathed the air of so many places without keeping a sample of any.
In the end, everyone is aware of this:

nobody keeps any of what he has, and life is only a borrowing of bones.

—Pablo Neruda, October Fullness

It’s my 30th birthday today! Now begins my journey to thirty, flirty, and thriving.

24 hours in, I’ve at least got 2 of the 3 going. The thriving… Well, we will see.

I had a thoroughly pleasant birthday weekend punctuated with many delicious meals.
It started with a surprise, as Nati showed up at my doorstep on Friday night from Michigan. He could only stay for a scant 16 hours, but we made the most of it: on Saturday morning, we met my parents and went for truly delectable scones at Mary O’s Irish Soda Bread Shop in the East Village. Fresh from the oven, steaming and soft inside with crisp craggy exteriors, and laden with Kerrygold butter and blackberry jam, they are a delight.
On Saturday, I hosted many of my friends and my parents at Parcelle, which is one of my favorite restaurants. We served deliciously crisp white wine, chunks of fancy parmesan, and a cake from By Clio (Thai tea with passionfruit and earl grey). My best friends and I went out dancing afterwards, and I definitely had too much to drink, and yet I woke up sans hangover. Birthday miracleeeeee!
On Sunday, my parents took me to the Frick (which is a wonder) and we had lunch at Westmoreland within the museum. The menu is short but the food is really excellent lunch fare—I highly recommend stopping in if spending a day seeing the collection.

I haven’t had such a perfect birthday, maybe ever.
I left the weekend and thus embarked into my thirties full of gratitude, love, and good food.

All summer, I have been kept caffeinated and happy with copious quantities of strawberry matcha lattes.
I expect this to continue through autumn too, though the chill in the air has started to make me want to switch to London fogs.

For my birthday cake, I decided I wanted to recreate the flavors of this drink: a dense matcha butter cake that is made all the more moist with a simple syrup soak, filled with barely sweetened roasted strawberry jam, which concentrates the fruit’s flavor, and frosted with a faintly bitter, green, and grassy matcha buttercream as well as a sweet strawberry buttercream. The whole cake is naturally colored and decorated with a riot of dried flowers.

A few notes:
In my matcha baked goods, I generally use the same grade matcha (cafe) that I use in my lattes. The color is more intense this way. I find culinary matcha to be a bit more yellow. Ceremonial grade should be left for drinking by itself.
The dried flowers are from Gemini Angie Shop on Etsy. Please make sure you use edible flowers when using them to decorate a cake.
Pink dragonfruit powder is used here only for its color. You could skip it and have a lightly pink frosting with the freeze-dried strawberries alone, or you could use a drop of red food coloring.

Birthdays, previously:
29
28
27
26
25
24
23
22
21
20
18

Strawberry Matcha Latte Cake
makes 1 3×6-inch layer cake, or 1 2×8-inch layer cake

ingredients:
for the matcha cake:
225 grams (1 cup) unsalted butter
400 grams (2 cups) granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 eggs
2 egg yolks
300 grams (1 1/4 cups) buttermilk
360 grams (3 cups) flour
1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons matcha powder

for the roasted strawberry jam:
2 cups fresh or frozen strawberries
1 teaspoon sugar

for the matcha and strawberry Italian meringue buttercreams:
4 egg whites
200 grams (1 cup) granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, to taste
60 grams (60 mL, 1/4 cup) water
450 grams (2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 tablespoon matcha powder
100 grams (3.5 ounces) freeze dried strawberries
2 teaspoons dragonfruit powder

for the simple syrup:
30 grams (2 generous tablespoons) granulated sugar
30 grams (2 tablespoons) water

directions:
Make the cake: grease and flour 3 6-inch cake pans; set aside.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Beat butter on high speed for 3 full minutes, until light in color and fluffy.
Add in the sugar and salt and beat on high for 2 more minutes; scrape the bowl.
Add in the eggs and egg yolks and beat on high for a full 3 minutes.
Stir in the buttermilk.
Add the flour, baking powder, and matcha powder and beat until combined, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.
Portion out evenly into the prepared pans.
Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until a tester comes out with a few moist crumbs.
Allow to cool completely.
Make the roasted strawberry jam: with oven preheated, place strawberries and a pinch/teaspoon of sugar in an oven safe glass dish and bake until jammy and thickened, about 30 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid burning.
Allow to cool completely.
Make the simple syrup: place sugar and water in a small saucepot and bring to a hard simmer until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the buttercream: place egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer.
Place sugar, salt, and water in a small pot.
Begin to heat the sugar mixture on high as you whip the whites on medium speed.
When the syrup reaches 245 degrees F, your egg whites should be at firm soft peaks (almost hard peaks, but not dry).
Drizzle the syrup into the meringue with the mixer running; whip on high until cooled to body temperature.
Beat in butter one or two tablespoons at a time.
Beat buttercream on high speed until thick, glossy, and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
Divide buttercream into two portions (about 60-40), leaving the larger portion in the bowl of the stand mixer.
Add in the matcha to the larger portion and whip on high until completely homogeneous.
Scrape matcha frosting into another bowl and wipe out stand mixer bowl.
Pulverize the freeze-dried strawberries with the dragonfruit powder in a food processor.
Sift well and add to the smaller portion of the frosting in the wiped-out mixer bowl, whipping for 1-2 minutes to ensure homogeneity.
To decorate, first level the cakes and cut off the brown cooked portions; brush with the simple syrup.
Pipe a border of matcha buttercream around the edge of the cakes, then fill with the roasted strawberry jam.
Crumb coat with the matcha buttercream, then frost thickly.
Use the strawberry buttercream to pipe decorations on the cake.
Decorate with dried flowers as desired.