Birthday Desserts

I haven't seen much of my friends and family since I started working at Central Market. I got the notion that I wanted to have a birthday party so that I could get everyone together in one place and cook and eat lots of good food. I have to admit it was a lot of work, but Frank and mom helped me out with the cooking and preparations and it was well worth it in the end.


We had a crowd, so like I mentioned last week I went a bit overboard with desserts.
I chose this Salted Caramel Chocolate Cake from Martha Stewart.  The recipe is a keeper!
I also made my Tres Leches cake, doubling the recipe with whipped cream and berries in between the four layers (I split two layers into four this time).  I opted for the Italian meringue topping like I did on the cupcakes, but didn't have a torch to brown it.  You can see where I attempted to use a lighter and gave up.  I was over being in the kitchen at that point.



Since lots of kiddos were coming I also made Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting.  Delicious!  Unfortunately kids seem to like to lick icing off and throw away a perfectly delicious cupcake.  They don't know what they're missing!

Believe it or not almost all of that cake was eaten by the end of the night!


I received some lovely gifts from my generous friends but my most precious gift was spending time with my favorite little girl in the whole wide world, Karlie Rose.

I had a wonderful birthday and really enjoyed my party. I think I have the birthday party bug out of my system for a few years though, and will stick to entertaining smaller groups of friends and family. I will be back to share our dinner recipes soon. We did a taco and salsa bar and it was delicious!