Ok, guys. Before I dive into photos and posts about our spring break road trip, I need to share about this birthday cake. I know, it’s another cake. But it’s Hannah’s first ever birthday cake, and despite the storm of insanity that plopped down on our house the week of her birthday I was still determined to make it as awesome as I could.

It’s a 4 layer white cake that I dyed to match her Hawaiian-themed party. It’s covered in (from scratch) vanilla buttercream. I had all kinds of elaborate ideas for how to frost and decorate this cake, but in the end it was really delicious and a fun surprise to cut into in front of the guests.

The cake recipe was from my trusty America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. I specifically wanted white cake, not yellow cake, because I wanted to make sure the dyes would be bright and vibrant and not altered too much by the color of the cake batter. Now my white cake recipe was for a 2-layer cake, so I actually made 2 batches because I wanted this to be nice and high. Here’s the original recipe, with my food coloring modifications and no almond extract (in the original recipe, but why sully a perfectly good cake with almond extract?):

Ingredients for a 2-Layer White Cake
1 cup whole milk, room temperature
6 large egg whites, room temperature (save the egg yolks for the buttercream!)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
12 Tbsp (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces and softened
4 cups frosting or buttercream (we’ll get to that in a minute)

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease your cake pans. I like to butter and flour mine, then put a piece of parchment on the bottom. I actually have four 9″ cake pans, so I didn’t have to reuse the pans for the second batch of batter. I didn’t just double the batter because I thought it might overflow my stand mixer. I actually made the cake twice.

Whisk the milk, egg whites, and vanilla extract together in a small bowl.

In the bowl of your stand mixer (or a large bowl if you’re mixing by hand), whisk all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt) together. Then on medium-low speed add the butter to the flour mixture one piece at a time. Mix until it looks like moist crumbs, 1-3 minutes.

Beat in all but 1/2 cup of the milk mixture, then raise the mixer speed to medium and beat until “smooth, light, and fluffy,” 1-3 minutes. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the last bit of the milk mixture. Mix until the batter looks slightly curdled, about 15 seconds. Give it a good stir with a rubber spatula.

Okay, let’s get coloring.

I figured out that each layer of this particular cake recipe was about 3 cups of batter (very messy trial and error). I can’t speak to other recipes, but if you use this one you should be good to go with 3 cups of batter to a layer. So with each batch I made, I portioned out 3 cups of batter into separate bowls for coloring. I used my good Ateco food coloring gels, which get more saturation with less dye than supermarket food coloring. And I have the entire range of colors, so I don’t have to mix. I never use any other food coloring, these are wicked good to keep on hand (sorry, we just got back from New England).

You have to really mix the gel in, and only add 2 or 3 drops max at a time before you stir and check for color.

A little goes a long way.

They give such beautiful color.

So after I colored my layers I spread them into pans…

…and followed the recipes baking directions. Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few crumbs attached (but not wet), 20-25 minutes. Rotate the pans halfway through baking.

Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then flip out onto wire racks, peel off the parchment paper, and cool right side up completely before frosting. Bake your other layers (in my case, pink and green–which I did not photograph).

I made the cake layers the night before and wrapped each layer in plastic wrap once it was cool enough not to fall apart. This was to make completely sure that they were ready to be frosted on party day.

I used my favorite Vanilla Buttercream recipe for the frosting, and since it yields 4 cups, or enough for a 2-layer cake, I did go ahead and double the amount of frosting I made. That worked out fine in the stand mixer. Then I frosted the cake really simply, using this equally handy gadget to make sure the layers were exactly the same height. I stuck on her 1 candle and some of the silk flowers I had for decorating, and that’s all she wrote. I worried that a simple vanilla frosted cake wouldn’t look cool enough on the goodies table, but I got such a cool reaction from everyone when we sliced into the cake and they saw all the colored layers for the first time. So that was actually pretty awesome, and of course the birthday girl kinda dug it.

Today was Hannah’s luau birthday party. It was kind of a trip.

She was not into the leis.

But she was dressed in her finest resort casual…

…despite the fact that it snowed today!

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I finally picked an invitation design for Hannah’s first birthday last weekend, and I’m really happy with it. After narrowing down the choices, I went with this design from Eclectic Note Cards. It was amazingly affordable ($8!), Adam liked it, and it came with an entire suite of very cute options for thank you notes, labels, and signs. I also found this Cricut cartridge at a great price the other day, so I can add to the decor with some more die cut goodies.

I just have to order the card stock and envelopes, and I can start printing and mailing.

We had a holiday party this year! We skipped last year because it was just too much with the baby on the way, but last Sunday we had a bunch of great people over for an early evening celebration. I forgot how much I missed this party. I took zero photos once the party started, which I’m horrible about every year. There’s always so much to do, so many people to talk to. Plus Hannah was up entertaining people, so at one point we had to go get her to bed.

Anyway, I did manage to get some photos of most of the spread before folks arrived. I didn’t get any of the hot chocolate bar, which is nowhere near as fancy as it sounds. Just a corner of the kitchen set up with hot chocolate, white and dark chocolate bits, crushed candy canes, caramel, marshmallows, and Baileys to mix in. I loved that, we’re totally doing it again for Christmas. But here are the other goodies.

Delicious, delicious cupcakes from Sugarush. Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies, a cookie decorating station, and chocolate covered pretzels. We also had the white chocolate peppermint M&Ms, they’re pretty darn good.

I used my Ninjabread Men cookie cutters. The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book (my no-fail book) had a great recipe for thick and chewy gingerbread (as well as thin and crispy), and since I believe there’s no point to a cookie that isn’t chewy I was happy to use it. Maybe I’ll post it one of these days, but there are so many great gingerbead cookie recipes out there. The important thing is that these cookies are NINJAS. They will kick your butt into the festive spirit.

And, of course, supplies to decorate your little warriors. Within my minimalist Scandinavian color scheme, obviously. See what a grownup I was this year? No cartoon reindeer or snowmen or polka dotted tray liners this year.

Red. Velvet. Cheesecake. Brownies. I found this recipe on Pinterest and made them, they were pretty darn good. Fudgey (Fudgy? nothing looks right) and awesome, and even though I got distracted and (very slightly) overbaked them, the cheesecake layer more than made up for it.

The whole shebang.

And from the other side. Fancy.

This was the “savory spread.” Chips, dips, cheese and crackers. I actually just remembered that I also made garlic knots from a Bon Appetit recipe. That one I’ll post here, it was really good and Bon Appetit doesn’t keep all their recipes online forever.

I had a great time this year! I wish I had taken some photos of the actual party, especially Hannah hanging out and entertaining everyone with her baby piano. There were a lot of new faces this year, and it really was such a nice time. It definitely helped get me into the festive spirit, I’d been feeling a little overwhelmed by the holiday To Do list until then.

Garlic Oregano Knots (from the December 2012 issue of Bon Appetit)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter plus more for baking sheet
1 pound store-bought fresh (or frozen, thawed) pizza dough, at room temperature for 30 minutes
All-purpose flour (for dusting)
3 tablespoons minced garlic
1 1/2 tablespoons dried oregano
Flaky sea salt (such as Maldon)

Lightly butter a baking sheet. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch square. Cut dough in half. Cut each half crosswise into 1-inch-thick strips (for 24 strips total). Tie each strip into a knot, gently stretching dough as needed. Place on prepared sheet. Loosely cover with plastic wrap; let rise in a warm place until slightly puffed, 1-1 1/2 hours.
Preheat oven to 375°. Bake knots until cooked through and golden, 25-30 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat 1/2 cup butter with garlic in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until garlic is fragrant, about 3 minutes. Transfer garlic butter to a large bowl; stir in oregano.
Place warm bread knots in bowl with garlic butter; toss until well coated. Transfer to a platter. Sprinkle with flaky salt.

Read More http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2012/12/garlic-oregano-knots#ixzz2FwMGblZ4

We had our first cookout of the year on Sunday, and another one today to celebrate July 4th. It’s been a great week for hanging out with friends and family; this time last year Adam and I were in Hawaii, and we’d just found out that Hannah was on the way. It was such an incredible time, so I don’t know…I was feeling really festive this July. Several teachers from school came on Sunday, and they caught me up on everything I’d missed while on maternity leave. Hannah loved just hanging out on the patio under an umbrella. We tried putting her in the crib for a nap, but she didn’t want to miss the party! So she took all her naps on me that day, lol. I’m not complaining.

This week was also the first time I’d really put out a coordinated spread since our 2010 Christmas party, and I tried to use a lot of tips from Amy Atlas’s Sweet Designs. I didn’t take photos of today’s table until the end of the day, and they aren’t anywhere near as great as the photos Adam shot of Sunday’s table. So I’m posting Adam’s photos from our Sunday cookout here. I had so much fun putting this together, and I love how it turned out.

I made strawberry pies-in-a-jar for Sunday. I actually made cherry pies-in-a-jar today, too. This is my new favorite party trick. I use my favorite pie recipes but cut out the dough to fill my mini Weck jars. The crust and filling for a regular pie are enough for 12 mini pies, and you bake them in the oven at 375 for 50-60 minutes. They are easy and so delicious. I love the gooey, exploded nature of these. Perfect summer cookout food!

I did kind of a strawberry color scheme (the berries of my obsession lately). Red berry colors and a little bit of green.

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