It's no secret that I have a massive sweet tooth. Brandon prefers that we not keep sweets around, but every year for my birthday, he sets aside his reservations about flour and refined sugar and all things yummy to make me a cake from scratch. What a guy! The tradition began our first year of marriage - sort of out of necessity. We were living abroad, so a boxed cake mix was hard to come by. Brandon turned to our trusty favorite: allrecipes.com.
*Lengthy side note* There's sort of a running joke about allrecipes.com. If you're not familiar with it, recipes on this site can be submitted by anyone, and then other members can write reviews. About 90% of the reviews go something like this: "AWESOME recipe. So good. I followed the recipe exactly...except I [changed everything about the recipe: ingredients, amounts, baking time, etc.]. But other than that, it was SO GOOD." Helpful, no? We used allrecipes.com A LOT in Hungary. Neither of us had an extensive knowledge of cooking, so we needed to get back to the basics. Allrecipes.com was probably not the best place to look, we've since learned. My go-to recipe site now is foodgawker.com. It is awesome. It's a compilation of recipes from food blogs - so (hopefully) a little more tested than allrecipes.com. Each recipe is represented by a picture (so, so great for a visual person, like myself) which you can click on and will take you to the blog with the recipe. You can narrow by category (desserts, beef, sides, etc.) or most popular or most recent or surprise me! Or, you can search for something more specific - "chicken and rice," "pumpkin pancakes," "paleo appetizer." A treasure trove of recipes. Seriously, stop using allrecipes and check out foodgawker.
Anyhoo, Brandon found a recipe for white cake with white frosting and made me a little birthday cake. I remember it was a cold, rainy, grey day and I was feeling a little homesick - so this was the perfect little pick-me-up.
*Lengthy side note* There's sort of a running joke about allrecipes.com. If you're not familiar with it, recipes on this site can be submitted by anyone, and then other members can write reviews. About 90% of the reviews go something like this: "AWESOME recipe. So good. I followed the recipe exactly...except I [changed everything about the recipe: ingredients, amounts, baking time, etc.]. But other than that, it was SO GOOD." Helpful, no? We used allrecipes.com A LOT in Hungary. Neither of us had an extensive knowledge of cooking, so we needed to get back to the basics. Allrecipes.com was probably not the best place to look, we've since learned. My go-to recipe site now is foodgawker.com. It is awesome. It's a compilation of recipes from food blogs - so (hopefully) a little more tested than allrecipes.com. Each recipe is represented by a picture (so, so great for a visual person, like myself) which you can click on and will take you to the blog with the recipe. You can narrow by category (desserts, beef, sides, etc.) or most popular or most recent or surprise me! Or, you can search for something more specific - "chicken and rice," "pumpkin pancakes," "paleo appetizer." A treasure trove of recipes. Seriously, stop using allrecipes and check out foodgawker.
Anyhoo, Brandon found a recipe for white cake with white frosting and made me a little birthday cake. I remember it was a cold, rainy, grey day and I was feeling a little homesick - so this was the perfect little pick-me-up.
In 2007, he made a funfetti cake! This one may not have been "from scratch".
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| (excuse the awkward pose) |
2008 was a German chocolate cake, with whipped cream frosting and "Happy Bday" spelled out with Reese's Fast Break candy bars (my favorite!)
The next few years, we forgot to get a picture - but 2009 was a pumpkin cheesecake (yum!) and 2010 was a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, topped with Reese's peanut butter cups. *This is also the year he surprised me by arranging for my college roommates to drive in from Michigan AND my sister to drive in from Denver for the weekend!*
And last year was a particularly tasty chocolate cake with fluffy chocolate frosting.
This year, we failed again in the picture-taking department. But Brandon decided to switch things up with a more fall-themed cake: Apple Upside Down Cake. Like a pineapple upside down cake, but with apples and apple-ish spices. So good! I think is is one tradition we should keep around for years to come!
And finally...this is not birthday related, but here we have a little Tooth Proof:
It's hard to see, but I assure you there are two tiny, razor-sharp teeth in there!
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