Those early birds among us not only catch the worm, they get to run their fingers through the first threads of the day; watch as the faint breath of light grows stronger and then smile, as finally the morning breaks and becomes that solid, reliable thing that we all know (and that a few of us) love.
I never used to be a morning person. At school I would moan and groan like a rusty engine at the first dreaded buzz off the alarm clock. I would roll, bleary eyed, out of bed and stumble downstairs for breakfast. No, for me 630am was The Devil’s Hour.
Somehow, against all odds, university has changed me. I now see those premature hours as time to be cherished and like an irritatingly eager student (which I am in fact not), I use the morning to get a bit of reading done before the day’s distractions consume my motivation and I’m left doing nothing but watching Youtube videos and eating peanut butter straight from the jar.
On Friday morning I managed to impress even myself in the productive morning stakes. As it was my friend’s birthday I finally had an excuse to wrestle myself some time and energy to bake a cake. As you can imagine, baking a chocolate cake in a kitchen which is under the constant threat of being entered by said friend, at any given moment, makes everything infinitely trickier. It led to this situation: Me, with baking equipment and ingredients piled on desk, flour in my hair, egg on my laptop, trying desperately to stir my batter with a ruler as I’d forgotten to bring in a spoon (if Birthday friend is reading this, don’t worry, it was clean).
In the end the chocolate sponge turned out well, but at one in the morning I had no interest in icing it. So there I was at 6:30am, with the light draining faintly into my room and ganache specking my face, icing the cake.
And it was delicious.
For the recipe for this chocolate cake follow this link to one of my earlier posts: http://italianinspiration.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/434/
To The Table 
Good morning Alice, yummmm that cake looks lovely, will look back on the post and find it . I to am a morning person as well especilay as I have 21 ducks,5 geese and 8 chickens who have the rooster speak up for them at a ridiculous hour, as we are in the first week on Autumn I get up to feed them and let them out the pens about 6am as it’s just light then. Our farm overlooks slight hills and valleys where at early morning the fog will lay in the valleys and with the hills peeping through the fog it looks amazing.so for the next 2 hours thats ‘my’ time to garden or work at what ever I choose then in for breakfast at 8am. You will be into your Spring, my favorite time of the year in the UK, When we used to visit Nannie we went at that time and as as we arrived we took photo’s of the bare trees then marveled as each day the new leaves slowly opened and by the time we left the trees were alive, and the spring flowers were everywhere especialy around the Suffock hedgrows.
Looking forward to your next ‘Post” so take care.
Luv Auntie Pauline xox
LikeLike
Oh, you write of your mornings so beautifully it makes me want to be there! It certainly sounds more inspiring than my early mornings spent in front of a computer trying to desperately write last-minute essays! I’m so looking forward to summer when I can enjoy early mornings the way they should be enjoyed: with walks through dew kissed meadows and breakfasts in the garden (well, that’s the plan anyway!) xxx
LikeLike
It looks very nice Alice……better then my cake I made this week, even the birds refuse to eat it but the cat next door doesn’t seem to mind it!!
Lets hope the weather is as nice in London next weekend as it has been here this weekend, I’m looking forward to being in London with the bulbs & blossom in full bloom.
LikeLike