Happy "Birthday" Dave!

My cousin David's birthday was a few weeks ago and I wanted to make him dinner and cake but he was in California for his birthday so we celebrated on Sunday. We had a BBQ at a park. We had burgers, potato salad and cupcakes. Luckily the weather was nice, cloudy but still warm. It was lots of fun. I was lame and forgot to take pictures of all of us. I did, however, take pictures of the cupcakes. I have been wanting to make these for a few months now and Dave's birthday gave me the perfect excuse. They are Bakerella's s'mores cupcakes (recipe here). You put graham cracker cake on the bottom, then you put in half a marshmallow, then put chocolate cake on top of that. You top it off with a graham cracker and brown sugar crumble and bake. Once it is cooled you put on chocolate ganache, a marshmallow and more of the graham cracker topping. I think they turned out well. Very yummy and I just thought it was a fun idea! So here are are some pictures.

Before the ganache and marshmallows.

Most of the marshmallow melts away but some of it comes to the top. You can see it in the picture below.

And the final product. Yummy!

My Man's Birthday!

Birthday number three... Jonny! Jonny's birthday was on Friday. I had to work in the morning but had the rest of the day off. I had decided to attempt a 14-layer cake for his birthday cake. I got the recipe from Bakerella (found here.) I was really nervous about it working and tasting good. Luckily I had Karleigh to help me. Thank you to her I wouldn't be able to do it alone. Unfortunately, Jonny had an Econ test and Stats homework to do on his birthday, but at least that kept him occupied while I baked. Basically you make a massive amount of batter (it barely fit in my biggest bowl) and then scoop it into 14 pie tins.

We baked for at a time and it is only 12 mins each so it didn't take too long.

Then you make the chocolate icing. This was the scary part for me I was worried I would scorch it or something. At one point it almost boiled over. And then you start stacking and stacking and stacking, layering icing in between. No they are not pancakes.

Now according to the recipe the picture below is what it looks like done but like Bakerella I didn't like the look so I added frosting.

Jonny took a break from school work and we went out to dinner with Kirstin. Then we came back to my place and Katie came over for presents and cake.

He got clothes from my parents and me, an N64 game from Katie and a game from Kirstin. Kirstin and I had fun wrapping her present to him. We used three different wrapping papers and went around it 3 times with each. Showing off all the paper and his present.

Then time for cake. I couldn't wait for him to cut into it! He gets his wish!

And here it is, 14-layers...

It actually worked! It tasted good too! None of us could even finish a piece though!

On Saturday we went to dinner with a bunch of his cousins. I had texted them all the week before to get them together for a birthday dinner. We went to Rumbi at The Gateway. It was so much fun! I think we were done with dinner after about 30 mins but we we hung out talking for like 3 hours.

I think overall he had a pretty good birthday. One year older and wiser!

Christmas Pops

I love to bake. Elena (Jonny's sister-in-law) and I decided to make some cake pops for Christmas. I saw them on the Bakerella website and thought they were adorable so I gave them a try. They were definitely more intimidating than the ghost one but I think they turned out really well. I'm not going to lie I am proud of them and I think they are adorable. We made Christmas trees and reindeer. Here are some pictures.

The color isn't the best but you get the idea. There are a lot of other cute ones just click here.