Birthday

Well, I guess technically I'm very late to my own party on this one, but I did have a birthday this month, and what a birthday it was! At my dear Aunt Jane's suggestion, I had a "birthday week", which is basically just an excuse to have as much fun as possible. I even extended it a bit, but more on that later.

My week started with a fabulous weekend out of the city at the lovely home of a friend of Jane's. We ate, we lay about, and the only advice I have for any of you is that finding the right floating pool lounger is entirely worth it. Ours allegedly came from Bed, Bath and Beyond. I couldn't find them online (I was heartbroken), but they were essentially just mesh with a floating border....so comfortable that I stayed out a little too long and got a little too burned. Oh well.

I had work at the museum on my actual birthday, and promised all of my co-workers that I would bring in cupcakes for the occasion. Now, normally when I bake cake, cupcakes, anything, well, cake-y, I go as far into the realm of chocolate as possible. This time though, I figured it had been hot and especially summery lately and decided to go a bit of a lighter route so that we wouldn't all regret indulging for those last two hours of the day post-cupcake break. I chose a "key" lime cupcake (I couldn't find key lime juice in my hoity toity local store...but I can't find a lot of things there) with cream cheese frosting, and boy was it good. I did a quick google search and came up with a recipe that I can't see to find again. Rest easy though, because if you want to do something similar the internet absolutely abounds with recipes for just this dessert. Bon Appetit has one, the food network has one...everyone, so go forth and bake with ease. I decided to color the frosting (which was the easiest thing I've ever made. quite literally.) instead of the cakes, because something about green cake just wasn't floating my boat, and here is the result.

These were a biiiiiig hit at work. One of my friends had three. Top the day off with happy hour at our usual haunt and a delicious dinner at Nice Matin with the aforementioned dear Aunt Jane, and it was a stellar day.

Since it was my first birthday in three years that I'd spent in the good old US of A, I figured I had to do some celebrating with my stateside friends. Turns out I have a lovely group of friends in New York, so I had everyone over for what was supposed to be cake and some bar time, and turned into cake and some inside time because the rain refused to stop pouring. Again, I went with a non-super-chocolatey cake, and I was pretty pleased. I used the Smitten Kitchen birthday cake recipe, which calls for a sour cream chocolate frosting. I loved it. Most people either loved it or said, "it's nice but I wouldn't choose it for myself", and I'm happy with that. It's just not super sweet...the sour cream adds a nice tang, so while it doesn't taste like eating cake smothered in sour cream, it tastes like cake smothered in....something not out of those handy little quasi-cans that we used to keep in the German Haus fridge (Heather. Anya. Yes.)

Here is the recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/07/best-birthday-cake/

The cake itself is so moist, easy, and delicious that I can't recommend it enough. She offers a great substitute if you want a sweeter, more traditional frosting, so have at it!

Here are the tasty, two-layered results of my labor. Complete with birthday-appropriate sprinkles.

Gilder came for a visit, and the weekend was spent being lazy and trying out the perogie's down the block. Not bad, if I do say so myself. I mentioned a little, er, "birthday week extension," which was a trip home for a fabulous Pinot Noir tasting dinner with my dad. The wine....the food...oh dear. There was a lot of it, and it was incredible. If I said more I'd pass out from hunger.

If you decide to give either of these a try, I highly encourage it, and do let me know!