Happy Birthday to Me (and Us)

Lesson learned: toaster ovens are not for baking cupcakes. (I thought maybe similar to the EZ Bake Oven, but nope.)
Look what happened:

Those are toasted on the top and totally gooey on the inside. Oops.

I still made two dozen* cupcakes and a two-layer cake.
Yes, I kind of did make my own birthday cake, but it was for a party for these birthday boys and girls:


Matt is wearing a Soylent Green t-shirt in this photo, which I thought was pretty funny. Anyway, onwards to my super adventures in the kitchen.

1. On Tuesday night I baked the layer cakes (and I used MATH! to figure out if I needed to double the recipe for the two pans or not. Yes children, math is useful in real life.), then let them cool and stuck them in the freezer until Friday.
The cake recipe is from the Silver Palate Cookbook I think, but it involves a cup of wine. Adult cake I guess.
2. Friday morning I took the cakes out to defrost.
3. Friday post-work I baked some cupcakes. Wait till you hear what I did with them.


4. Saturday morning it was FROSTING time. If you don't know this about me, I love frosting. Not that lame-ass buttercream stuff, but the sugary-sweet kind. Oh yeah. Usually I just eat the frosting from cakes and leave the rest of the cake to scavengers.
Frosting recipe from same cookbook. It involves melting chocolate and butter, then adding it to milk and powdered sugar and vanilla. Yum. Then you have to refrigerate and beat it every 15 minutes. YUMMMM.


5. And I cut up some strawberries.


6. Then I went wild with cupcakes. I used the filling tip from my cupcake frosting set and filled them with chocolate frosting!


7. And I frosted my cakes, adding a layer of strawberries in the middle.
There was a lot of switching things in and out of the fridge because it was HOT and the frosting got a little melty.


8. And I frosted the cupcakes. Some of them got strawberries, some got sprinkles. Check them out! (I didn't get a great picture because things were starting to get hectic, so no cupcake porn sadly. If you want real porn, you can go see Bruno.)


9. And I decorated the cake. I used some vanilla frosting from the can or contrast, and pretty colored sprinkles and star confetti. And more piping tips.


Yes, I put sprinkles only on the white frosting in case you can't tell from this photo.
Maybe I should start taking orders?

Anyway, the cake was excellent. Really really moist, and then a good contrast between strawberries and chocolate frosting. Delicious with ice cream too, but what isn't??? And I did actually eat the cake. I made it, which meant it was awesome, so of course I was going to eat it.
(Just in case you can't tell, I'm really freaking proud of myself!!)


*Less the two that got zapped on the top rack of the convection oven. Jeeez.