Party Menu (Chocolate Cake!)

Since this blog is/used to be? primarily about food I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't give you a quick recap of our birthday party menu along with the all-important cake recipe review.

As I've said, this was a small event and considering the guests of honor were 2 year-olds and that we had several house guests, we really wanted to keep the menu simple and easy to prepare.

The only munchies we set out before dinner were chips and fruit salad.  My little guys love fruit!  Last year, they chose watermelon over cake.  Not this year!

For dinner we made Mr Pear's amazing Pulled Pork which was amazing as usual.  We don't usually eat it with bbq sauce but we did provide a couple of different kinds for our guests along with some small soft rolls in case anyone wanted a sandwich.

The boys both love pulled pork but I wanted to make sure there was something super kid-friendly for our other small guests.  I decided to try this beefy mac and cheese and it was a huge hit!  I doubled the recipe and I'm so glad I did. This stuff was so good' we will definitely be making it around here often.

image from foodnetwork.com

The only other side we served was a simple coleslaw similar to this one.  Instead of  using all green cabbage I always use one green and one purple.  I also like to grate my veggies in the food processor along with half of a sweet onion.

Dessert was cake of course!  As I mentioned the other day, I decided to go with Pioneer Woman's Big Chocolate Birthday Cake recipe.  The recipe looked good and the cake looked very easy to make.  Another plus was that it was "Big" (she bakes hers in 4 nine inch round pans) which was great because I was going to be making an 11 x 15 inch sheet cake.

The cake was super simple to make and the instructions were very clear.  The only change I made was to stir 1 tablespoon of instant coffee granules into the chocolate after it had been melted in with the butter.  I think instant coffee really helps deepen the chocolate flavor and I promise you can't taste coffee in the cake!

I greased my cake pan with vegetable shortening instead of my usual butter, and floured it, and despite my huge fear of this big cake getting stuck in its big pan, it came right out!

I dyed a double batch of Wilton buttercream frosting light blue (though I didn't use nearly the amount of icing sugar called for in the recipe) and decorated the frosted cake with cherry flavored decorating candy string (also by Wilton, found in Target of all places) to make a railroad track in the shape of a 2.  A few train set props and we had our train cake!

Unfortunately I made one mistake.  I kept the cake in the refrigerator during the party (since it was still 100 degrees out) and the cake was cold.  Instead of being light and fluffy it felt a bit dense.  The flavor was still really good and the cake was more than edible, but it tasted even better the next day when I put the left overs on a covered cake plate on the kitchen counter.  Delicious and light and fluffy.  Arg.  Lesson learned, but thankfully, not the end of the world either.

So that is it!  The birthday is over, now on to a third great year with two great little boys.  :)

It's almost time for a Party!

Hard to believe, but the twins will be 2 years old on Friday. They are such great little boys and full of energy and fun these days.  We are really looking forward to throwing a little party for them on Sunday.  Two sets of Grandparents will be there (they have 3) and a couple of their friends.  We'll have two three-year-olds, a four year old and the birthday boys.  6 toddlers/preschoolers should make for a great time I'm sure! :)

Since the boys are young, and really still don't understand what a birthday even is, we won't be in full out party mode.  We asked that no one bring gifts and we won't be doing favors or party games but we will be eating some good food (and cake!) and playing our hearts out.

The party theme is Thomas the Train. The boys love all things transportation, especially Aaron, and they were so lucky to receive an enormous amount of trains and tracks and etc from their older nephews.  We'll have a train table (or two!) set up for the kids to play with indoors and for the rough and tumble outdoor crowd (that would be Alex) there will be a bounce house that we got them for their birthday. I am super excited about that bounce house because I am really hoping some bounce sessions will burn up some of the excess energy around here on a daily basis. :)

So here's a little of what I'm planning:

A few store-bought Thomas decorations and some fun straw cups

A "Mommy-made" Happy Birthday train banner

And, hopefully, some appliqued Thomas the Train "2" shirts for the boys

I say hopefully because although I've cut out my "twos" and added fusible web and pinned them to the shirts...I can not seem to get them sewed on.  I've got some backup coming over tonight to help me try to sort through my sewing machine issues but let's just say that just because you bought a sewing machine two months ago....it doesn't make you a seamstress, sigh.  I've got a long way to go on that.

Here is my cake inspiration from Pinterest....unfortunately the link to the original photo is broken.

I'm obviously going with a 2 shape, though I may not cut the cake into a two if I feel like we need the extra cake for eating. I may just do the train tracks in a two shape on the full sized rectangular cake, but I'm really just not sure yet.

So!  That is what I'm up to this week.  I'll be sure to share pictures of our little party next week along with recipes from our menu.  I am going to use this recipe from Pioneer Woman for the cake, I sure hope it comes out!

Party stuff aside it should be a really fun weekend filled with friends and family celebrating two special little guys who have made our life really wonderful these past two crazy years.  :)

This post is linked to Multiples Monday over on Capri +3

Back to Reality

We are finally back friends! I hope you'll forgive us for our two week lapse; we had such a wonderful time celebrating the boys' birthday, visiting with our family, and then relaxing in Hawaii!

I can't believe my little boys are one!  Grandma and Grandpa Doug were here, along with Grammy and Grandpa Al. The party was small, the gifts were (very) plentiful, and the cakes I put so much thought into were mostly ignored by the birthday boys!

Alex eating some cake after some coaxing

This face pretty much sums up Aaron's interest in birthday cake

He decided on some watermelon instead.

A picture of Alex's slightly demolished cake

Overall definitely a success. :)

Cake disinterest aside it was a great day and the boys had a fun time with their Grandparents...and with their presents too of course!

The next day, though, we left the boys in the able hands of Grandma and Grandpa Doug and Alex and I flew off to Maui for a week of fun in the sun.  

We paddleboarded, snorkled, and jumped around in the waves on the beautiful Wailea beach.

Alex went down every one of the many water slides at the resort about a million times

I basked in the sun

And we both drank lots of fruity drinks out of plastic pineapples.

Despite missing the babies A LOT more than we were expecting, we had a wonderful time relaxing and enjoying time together.  This was an incredible first year with the babies for us; challenging, joyful and tearful.  But we made it, and we are looking forward to so many more.

But back to the kitchen!!  We have some good stuff cooking this week.  Fall is here so get ready for soups and more pumpkin than most people can stand! 

Birthday Cake!

My little monsters are turning 1 in just 4 weeks...it doesn't seem possible!  How on earth did we go from this:

Aaron left, Alex right

To this! In just a few short months? 

It should be noted that this was the best picture I could get of both of them together in the last three days.  Each and every shot seems to have at least one blurry spot due to the constant motion these two are always in.

Anyway, back to the cake at hand.  I decided that even though we are not doing a huge birthday bash, just 2 sets of grandparents and one proud set of parents, I did want to make a cake for each boy.  "Smash" cakes are hugely popular right now and I think they look like a lot of fun.  The baby is basically given his own cake to do with what he pleases.  I'm sure rubbing it in their hair and feeding some to the dogs will be top priorities with my two. :)  

I wanted the cakes to be bigger than cup cakes but a LOT smaller than a regular cake.  After some searching and a trip to the craft store, I found these.  The Wilton mini tasty fill cake pans are 4" in diameter and 1 1/4" tall.  Each pan (set comes with four) has an indentation so you can add a filling and then put two cakes together to make a 4" x 2 1/2" cake!  Perfect!  The other day I tested them out to make sure I had the baking times right for these little pans. After all, I don't want my little guys first cakes to be dry or under-cooked!

Simple White Cake, adapted from allrecipes

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 extra large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Grease and flour the pans.  This is a super easy cake to make, the only trick is to really make sure and beat it well so it is nice and fluffy.  First cream the butter and sugar until very fluffy!  Then add in the eggs one at a time, beating WELL.  Now add the extracts, beat some more, the flour and baking powder, beat some more, then finally the milk. Stir in the milk so you don't get splashed. :)  The batter should be nice and fluffy by the end.  Pour it into your prepared pans.  The recipe says that for a 9 x 9 pan, bake 30-40 minutes and for cupcakes bake 20-25.  My little cakes took 20 minutes.  You'll know they are done when the top springs back when lightly touched.  

I was pretty impressed by these little pans!  First time out and they didn't stick and the cakes were cooked perfectly.  Since I am not always the best baker, (remember the brownies?) I was super excited.  Here are some pictures of the process.

I filled them with whipped cream

With the icing and sprinkles

And the middle!

The final cakes will look a lot like this one.  Butercream icing, some primary colored sprinkles, and a number one candle to top it off.  I'm hoping they will look classic and fun; baby friendly without a whole lot of fussiness.  Cause babies just prefer messiness anyway! ;)