batman birthday
This weekend we had a birthday party for Shawn’s brother Kyle. He is a regular fixture over at our place and today he turns 20. So of course we had a completely age appropriate party. A Batman party. Oh yes. And not just any Batman party, but what we deemed a “fun food” Batman party. It was pretty sweet.
There was potato salad, shells & chreez bites, and snake dogs. There were balloons, streamers and a few key Batman decorations. We also had one very hastily decorated coconut cake. It was nice to hang out, eat a bunch of yummy stuff and end the night watching Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (we already watched the Tim Burton’s Batmans last weekend).
Happy Birthday Kyle! (You folks should probably wish him happy birthday too…)
Happy 25!
So if you hadn’t guessed already. My (not-so) little surprise is a stand mixer! I’m ecstatic! I finally decided it was time to just fork over the money for it and get the one I really wanted. It’s a great addition to the kitchen and I know it will be great to make larger batches of things which I hope will be in my future.
My first baking experiment was my own birthday cake. A lot of people thought it was against the rules for me to make my own cake but I couldn’t think of anywhere that I could get a better cake. We broke in the mixer with mashed potatoes but this was the first dessert to get made.
I also treated myself to some new cake pans and a cake stand. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve made a cake, let alone a double layer one, so it was definitely a learning experience. With cupcakes, if one turns out funny there are still 11 good ones. With a cake you just have one chance. Mainly I learned the correct proportions of frosting and such that I’ll need for the next cake I make.
The plan was a double layer vanilla cake with vanilla frosting in the middle and a chocolate ganache icing. I used to have a really good recipe for vanilla cake but apparently lost it so had to do a bit of improvising. Ultimately everything turned out really well but did cause me a bit of distress in the making.
I made quite a chocolate mess covering it but I new it would taste great even if it wasn’t the prettiest cake ever. Still need a couple more decorating tools, but mainly practice. It really did turn out delicious though. Shawn says it tasted like a giant gourmet hostess cake. Yum!
