His mom is taking us out for dinner tomorrow to celebrate his actual birthday, but my parents came up today to celebrate his birthday and check out our fancy new kitchen!
Since his cake last year sat around for way too long, I decided I would make the cake today and we could enjoy it with my parents. That way, it wouldn't be sitting around forever getting stale and disgusting.
Nathan grilled tonight, we had venison tenderloins (marinaded in Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce, fresh garlic cloves, and honey) and basil burgers (from H&G cookbook). My mom brought up her potato salad (my absolute favorite... I could probably eat an entire bowl/batch/recipe?). After dinner, we hiked through the woods to make room for dessert (which is the part I contributed!)
I made Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guinness Stout Cake. With cream cheese frosting. Everything was from scratch, for the first time in my baking career!
The cake starts off with Guinness beer, so that's already a highlight. It was a few more ingredients than the box mixes I'm used to, but it wasn't actually too hard to figure out. I even made the frosting! It was just confectioner's sugar, cream cheese and heavy cream. Easy peasy! My favorite part of the recipe is that the directions say "Ice top of cake only, so that it resembles a frothy pint of Guinness." (quoted from http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-nigella-lawsons-chocola-79475, where I found the recipe) Cute!
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| The middle deflated a bit, but the texture of the cake was really nice in spite of that... (photo by me) |
The recipe calls for sour cream, so I bought Daisy (Do a dollop, do do a dollop of daaaisy!). Opened it up, and to my surprise? Glacier National Park in Montana! Back story...My friend, Amy, stopped over last night to hang out and informed me that she would (most likely) be moving to Montana next year, and would be right near Glacier National Park! And now, it shows up right in my sour cream!
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| Amy! There you are! |
Everyone loved the cake. It was heavy, we definitely should've cut smaller slices... especially after a huge dinner, but it was delicious. I'd call it a baking success. And we have half a cake left to eat tomorrow on Nathan's actual birthday!
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| Finished Product! (photo by me)
So, Happy Birthday to my Nathan... and Happy Birthday to any other April Fool's babies!
What's for dinner at your house tonight?
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