Happy Birthday Sydney! Happy Easter!

Another post about a cake.  You would think based on my latest posts that we live on cake.  Well, sort of lately.  We try to throw in the odd vegetable now and then but we have hit the season of birthdays in our family.  We do however leave one, oh so special one for the end of the year! :)

Today is Sydney's birthday!  Wow! How did 15 years go by?!!  We knew we had a challenge for Sydney's cake as she has made some pretty impressive cakes lately for others and felt we had to put the same amount of effort in for hers.  The word around the house was that we don't make chocolate cake enough.  In fact, I don't remember the last time I did bake a chocolate cake.  So off to hunt for a chocolate cake recipe.

I found this amazing Cookies and Cream Cake recipe on one of my favourite Blogs Annie's Eats - I visit this blog regularly - beautiful photos and the recipes sound so good - very inspiring.  It was time to actually make one of these tasty creations. In fact, I had just made one of Annie's recipes Strawberry Cupcakes with Swiss Meringue Butter Cream for Sydney and her friends a few days ago.  These are probably the best cupcakes I have ever made the icing is so smooth and just lightly sweet - it really tastes like creamy, strawberry ice cream.  I'm only sorry that a photo was not taken before they were eaten!

Erica and I made Sydney's cake.  It has chocolate cake layers with  whipped cream filling and chopped oreo cookie bits in the middle.  A smooth chocolate frosting with more whipped cookies on the top.  Of course we had to top it off with more oreos...because..who doesn't like oreos?  I have a funny story about oreo cookies.  When I was young my mom rarely would buy such a cookie (and funny enough as a mom myself neither do I!) but I really wanted some....I was pretty good at duplicating my mom's writing so I added oreos to her weekly grocery list.  When my mom got to the store she couldn't think of why she needed oreos but she had written it on the list so she thought she better buy them....ah, that was a good week!

Happy Birthday Sydney!

and Happy Easter!

Cake and Celebrations

Sydney made this beautiful spring inspired cake for her Nana's 80th birthday on the weekend.

Love the spring colours!

 The cake was delicious.  Lemon scented vanilla cake with almond buttercream icing.

Yum!

Random Acts of Kindness - Act XXIII

Made a birthday cake from scratch


It was my youngest daughter's 12th birthday yesterday and I wanted to make a birthday cake for her this year. I knew a store-bought, regular type birthday cake was just not going to do. She has quite a reputation for making incredible birthday cakes and treats for her family on special occasions and I wanted to do the same for her.




It's funny but when the girls were little I went to great lengths to make special birthday cakes for them. They were less about the cake and more about the decorations and icing back then. I made clown shaped cakes and Mickey Mouse cakes, I made the most incredible Barbie cake with the cake as her dress, I've made castles with blue jello moats, candied fish cakes, under-the-sea cakes and cupcakes that spell words. I literally spent hours thinking, preparing and making these cakes. A few years ago I just decided to ease my time commitment and start buying them. Which was fine but I must say it was fun to look in the recipe books and choose what cake to make. It was also nice to know that I could make something not so traditional and it would be appreciated.



So yesterday morning I got myself ready and started baking a Dulce de Leche Cream Cake. (It sounds alot more complicated than it really was.) Essentially it's an almond-scented cake, whipped cream and a Latin American caramel sauce called dulce de leche.

There is something really nice about making something from scratch. You know exactly what's in it. You aren't adding unnecessary preservatives and strangely named chemicals.

It's amazing what you can find in everyday life. When I looked down in the bowl after beating I found this beautiful design. I have been really inspired by design and textures this week after reading a blogpost from a friend I met through Etsy who I like to call RikRak. (check it out!)

Another great thing about baking a cake yourself is how great the house smells....mmm...

In between baking and serving you have to whip real whipping cream and add a 1/2 cup of of the dulce to leche. You can make the caramel sauce yourself, and it doesn't look that hard but I actually had bought a jar from President's Choice after it had been promoted over the holidays. It's really good and it's not really cheating when you make everything else by scratch, right? I'm a good mom but I no longer consider being 'super' mom a necessity!! I just lightly warmed it up to make it more runny rather than spreadable

...and here's the result. Not your average birthday cake. Each piece is actually put together individually. It starts with a spoonful of the caramel sauce on the plate followed by the bottom half of the cake, then more caramel and a couple spoonfuls of the whipped mixture. Top with the other half of the piece, more caramel and then whipped cream. Sydney doesn't like nuts so hers was plain but the rest of us had toasted slivered almonds on the top.

Beautiful and yummy.

Happy Birthday!

It's nice to be back...it's been a while. Sometimes life just takes you in unexpected directions and you have to just go with it. I'm glad to be back and return to my acts of kindness. There's nothing like having a little kindness in your life.