I've decided to stop celebrating my birthday. I figure if I don't mark the occasion I won't actually get any older. So August 10th is now Be Nice to Jess Day. You too can observe Be Nice to Jess Day by partaking in a glass of bubbles or a macaron or two.

This year we celebrated BNTJ Day with our usual shindig at Mum and TD's. Bubbles, cheese platter, oysters, prawns, TD's lamb stew... if it ain't broke...

Even though it was my birthday, I volunteered to make the cake. I'd pinned a Neapolitan cake a while ago and I was keen to try it out.

I've always been a fan of Neapolitan ice cream. People often tell me stories of how the chocolate section would be eaten first and the strawberry last. I'm sure someone once told me that their mum refused to buy anymore tubs of Neapolitan because they would only eat the chocolate and then open a new tub. Not me though! I eat all the flavours. I'm actually the perfect Neapolitan partner because chocolate is my least favourite flavour.

The original cake was a three level chocolate cake with layers of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry icing. I decided to modify the cake and make a two layer chocolate cake with vanilla icing in the middle and strawberry icing on the top. That way the cake would still have all the flavours without as much fiddling (and less icing. I think the original might have had icing overload).


More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.