Butterflies

Hey guys! (Insert the usual rambling about being a hit-or-miss blogger here!)

So my sister-in-law’s birthday was last weekend and I got to make her birthday cake TWICE!  How fun is that?!

Not much fun at all, honestly.  Nina requested her favorite chocolate mocha cake, which I always frost with a white chocolate buttercream.  I thought I would make it a little extra fancy this time and fill it with a white chocolate mousse – the REAL kind that uses egg yolks and everything!  This was my first attempt at a mousse, so I’m not sure where I went wrong.  It just didn’t get really thick – it was just shy of the consistency of pudding.

I knew better, but I tried to forge ahead and use it in the cake anyway because oh my GOODNESS it tasted FABULOUS!  Unfortunately, it refused to keep its fabulousness between the layers of my cake and oozed out everywhere, despite my best attempts with freezing and sweet-talking it.

So at the last minute I whipped up grumblingly slogged through the motions and made a new cake, and asked Google for white chocolate filling suggestions.  It showed me a white chocolate truffle filling, and how could I say no to that?  I couldn’t, obviously.  The truffle filling was OK, but really sweet and heavy.  Not exactly what I was going for, but it was too late to turn back at that point!  The frosting on the outside of the cake was the filling mixed with whipped cream, and it was awesome.

Now I have to confess: I love harassing my SIL about her age.  She’s only three years older than me, but for some reason she’s super sensitive about getting older.  Now if time were being hard on her, I wouldn’t be such a pest…but let me put it to you this way: when I first met her, I thought my brother had found his (then) new girlfriend at the local high school.  Yeah.  She’s un-aging or something.  So because I’m completely obnoxious (and maybe a little jealous) I make sure to get that new number mentioned as many times as possible each birthday.  I know what you’re thinking – I MUST be her favorite in-law, ever!!

Now for the fun stuff – I decorated her cake with cookies!  Espresso-chocolate shortbread cookies ala Smitten Kitchen, to be exact.  Decorating cookies is a long and tedious process, but I’m kind of hooked.  They’re a lot of work but they’re little pieces of edible art when you’re done – I am totally loving decorating cakes with cookies!

If you’re a coffee lover, make these cookies!  If you’re not such a coffee fan, go ahead and skip this one.  But not before you admire my butterflies, which I had so much fun decorating!  This was the second time I have used Amanda’s Glaze Icing recipe, and I have to say…as much as I want to prefer this recipe to traditional royal icing (because the glaze icing is a lot easier to whip up at a moment’s notice) – I find the consistency of royal icing to be much easier to work with.  I don’t know how Amanda does such beautiful, delicate work with the glaze icing!  She’s awesome.

I also made a bunch of flower cookies on the side (bigger, more elaborate ones than those on the actual side of the cake) that were just “blooming!” with Christina’s age all over them, but luckily for her I got into such a rush at the end that I didn’t take any pictures of them.  Boo!

Have a GREAT weekend!

Becki

Tagged as: birthday cake, decorated cookies, espresso shortbread