Happy Healthy 30th!

This has to be one of my most ambitous cakes. My friend in Boise turned 30 last Thursday. All she asked for was to be rich and skinny. I wanted to make her a cake for her surprise party but needed to keep it healthy and had to get it from NJ to Boise. I found this cake as an inspiration online:

I'm pretty sure the baker in this photo used white chocolate around the edges. I used a similar technique with one and 1/2 cans of Pepperidge Farm Pirouette cookies cut in various lengths. I baked up some angel food cakes (4 in total), wrapped them in a ton of saran wrap, and packed them in my carry on. I had my friends boyfriend pick up 2 cans of Pirouette's, lots of fresh berries and cool whip. My grand idea was to icing the cake with cool whip and have it all stick together perfectly. Luckily I also had the foresight to pick up some whipped icing in case my grand plan went hay wire. Normally I would make my own icing - but I was getting off a 9 hour flight and had only a couple of hours until the big party and a million things to do.

I can tell you that cool whip does not work well on a defined cake, especially when your friends freezer is completely full of lean cusines. It starts slipping everywhere and needs to be in the freezer ASAP. I ended up using it on the bottom to ensure healthyness, but quickly threw the regular icing on the top half, hence why it looks sooo much better.

Either way my friend loved her cake, the whole thing was devoured and that makes me happy too! Here's my throw together traveling 30th birthday double decker recipe:

2 boxes Angel Food cake prepared in 4 cake pans (2 larger, 2 smaller)
2 cans of Pirouette cookies
Various fresh berries
4 containers of whipped vanilla icing or coolwhip (if you dare) - (I will find a homemade healthy whipped icing, but i'm going to need to experiment and update)
Fun Candles and ribbon for the finishing touch

Icing cakes and place cookies around the outside. Top with berries and candles and then tie the ribbon around the outside of the cake, if using cool whip stick cake in the freezer - perfectly level immeadiately to stabilize the cake and cookies. Otherwise the cookies will slide all over and you'll be playing Mr. Fix it with frozen icing. Keep cool whipped cake in the freezer for at least two hours.

Place the smaller cake on the larger cake and serve! Watch your guest smile.

Mooo-ve on over, its a Dairy Free Birthday Cake!

I have a coworker who is deathly allergic to all dairy and shellfish. He is so allergic that even stirring a spoon in a pot that contains dairy and then using that spoon on a nondairy pot sends him the hospital for days!

Today was his birthday and not the first time I've taken on the endeavor of baking for him. However, this is the first time I'm traveling for work and have to bake out of a hotel room with no supplies. Another coworker and I found a dairy free yellow cake mix and chocolate icing mix by Cherrybrook Kitchen and used the hotel stove. I doctored the icing to use the mix, vanilla soy milk, powdered sugar and peanut butter.

The cake turned out pretty darn good if I say so myself. The key to any good birthday cake is a moist cake and superb icing. You could definitely tell the cake mix contained rice flour versus cake flower, but it was nice and moist due to a tad bit of extra canola oil. The icing turned out great because peanut butter can make anything taste good! The whole team in the office was pleasantly surprised.

Dave's Birthday Cakes

Over the years, one of my favorite activities has always been making my husband's birthday cake. I've had some amusing conditions to bake including two different NYU dorm rooms, various NY apartments and finally our townhome. Here are snipets of his various cakes:

This one I made in my first NYU apartment. My husband was mildly obsessed with Smallville on the WB at the time. There have been many superman gifts given to my husband over the years.

This next one was in my second NYU apartment over the summer. It was MIGHTY ambitous and didn't come out quite like the picture (the second photo obviously). First, if you've ever seen NYU's Third North dorm, thats the first clue. Secondly I didn't have anything to sprinkle/sift the chocolate powder on top. I remember being so proud of my chocolate work given my work environment and then completely ruining the cake having to smear powedered chocolate. It was the only cake i've ever made from that cake book. I think it deserves another try.


I'm definitely missing a couple of years in between but this is Dave's 28th birthday cake. I remember this night like it was yesterday. I cooked dinner for us and his best friend and girlfriend. I bake, I do not cook. I made steak and it actually came out ok. Lots of wine, great dinner and of course Birthday Cake!

Dave's 29th cake. Lately I'm big into my nice big wide tips. Small lettering is so tedius. Call me lazy, its OK.

Lastly his 30th cake, but I didn't bake it. I had 60 people at a BBQ and so many other things to worry about. It was a really cool cake, but I must admit, I hate sheet cakes. I like the grand-ness of a big three tiered cake if you're going to make a big cake. Next time I'll bake it and it'll be even cooler (or at least I can hope)