Tag: birthday cake

Birthday Week CakeWalk (BWCW) Day 7: FINALE!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, celebrations

Today is the final day of my birthday week cakewalk, because today is my birthday! To celebrate, I decided to go all out and get nine cakes instead of just one! Is that wrong?
It’s okay, they’re minis! Mini cupcakes from The Cake Cottage in Wells!

These cupcakes are amazing. I haven’t eaten every one of them yet, but I’ve had enough of them to know that they are so worth eating.

The lemon is my favorite so far, but as I said, they are all delicious. If I could build my own, I would make a chocolate cupcake, strawberry frosting, and the green angel wing things from the lemon cupcake. 🙂

I hope I have inspired you to have your own birthday week cakewalk this year. I hope you had fun participating in mine! 🙂

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Birthday Week CakeWalk (BWCW) Day 6

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, celebrations, friends

Getting to the home stretch! Today’s cake was a present from my friend, Jane. Thanks for taking the pressure off with the cake-finding mission today, Jane!

Actually, I should have said today’s cakes, because Jane gifted me with a Cake Trifecta! Lemon, Chocolate Bomb, and Fruit Tart (because fruit is healthy!).

Oh, and the cakes came with a side of flowers.

What a treat this was!

All three of these cakes were delicious. All pass. Full disclosure: I didn’t eat all of them all! Only half! I swear!

🙂

One more day to go.

Birthday Week CakeWalk (BWCW) Day 4

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, celebrations, local fun

Wow, Day 4 already! It is going by TOO FAST. Today’s cake is from Spiller Farm in Wells, and it’s a Boston Cream Pie.

Boston Cream Pie

I grew up eating these cakes, or pies, as they are officially called. I know not why. There is no pie crust. There is no (traditional) pie filling. What there is is a yellow spongy cake, pastry cream, and chocolate frosting. That adds up to a cake in my book.

In the taste department, it was just okay. The cake was sort of wet, for some reason, and not in a good way. I am giving this cake a fail. It doesn’t live up to the Boston Cream Pies of yore. I wouldn’t buy it again.

Birthday Week CakeWalk (BWCW) Day 3

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, celebrations, local fun

Today, I got a smaller cake, just enough for me.

😀

Was thinking of strawberries, and thinking of healthy eating, and how to blend this with cake.

And look what I found!

Strawberry Square, Hannaford

It tasted as good as it looks. This cake little cake ROCKS! And good news: it comes in a bigger size. This cake is also a PASS! Ranking the cakes for taste so far:

  1. Strawberry Square (Day 3 from Hannaford)
  2. Chambord Cake (Day 1 from Market Basket)
  3. Carrot Cake (Day 2 from Wells IGA)

ONWARD!

Birthday Week CakeWalk (BWCW) Day 2

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Adult children, celebrations, local fun

Day 2, people!!

Today’s cake is brought to you courtesy of my daughter, who gifted it to me, by way of the Wells IGA. She asked me what I wanted and I told her to surprise me, but to get something she liked, too.

Here it is: Carrot Cake

Grade: Pass. Not as good as the chocolate one I had on Day 1, but still good. I would get it again. It could be that I just have an inherent bias toward chocolate anything, so I have to allow for that.

This one has cream cheese frosting, as expected, which was pretty good.

Mini-Carrot Cake from Wells IGA

Looking forward to Day 3!~ 🙂

Birthday Week CakeWalk (BWCW) Day 5

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, celebrations, friends

Day 5! Today’s cake had to be great to make up for yesterday’s fail. I went to Mike’s Clamshack Fish Market. My friend Barney said, “It’s that time again already?!”

I bought cakes here for last year’s cakewalk too.


Anyway, I got the Lemon Blueberry Cake with Lemon Buttercream made by Something Different. This is a tried and true cake. No indecision or angst here.

I am further celebrating by eating it at the ocean! Sublime. This cake surely is a ‘pass’ on the pass/fail scale, and then some.
I am taking a chance and posting third from my phone, so apologies if it’s not looking right. I’ll check it on the computer later.
Onward!

Birthday Week CakeWalk (BWCW) Day 1

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, celebrations, local fun

Last year I had a blast doing a Birthday Week CakeWalk. I had a different cake for every day leading up to my birthday.  Seven cakes in seven days! Yay!

Never heard of this? That’s because I made this up (hmm, maybe I should trademark that term…). I had a lot of fun. I also had a lot of cake. I got creative some days, when work (or whatever) prevented me from getting the cake I wanted.
I was bummed because it turned out that I must have just posted the photos of them on FB and now they are gone forever. So, this year I am going to memorialize the cakes in my blog. I will also be rating them as I go, pass or fail. Keeping it simple.

Chambord Cake from Market Basket

Day 1 is from Market Basket: Chambord Cake. Hello!! You had me at chocolate!

This is my opinion: Swoon. There is a layer of cream cheese and a thin layer of raspberry filling (jam?) that balances the chocolate very well. And the frosting? Excellent. Cake #1 is a pass. One improvement would be if they had strained out the seeds, but it’s not a deal breaker.

Okay! One cake down, six to go!

Italian birthday cake, 2015

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, family, italian, quest for the best, recipes

IMG_4349My family of origin had some family traditions, but they were few.

One that has made it to the present is the Italian Rum Cake birthday cake tradition. My brother’s birthday and mine are about a month apart. We both love Italian Rum Cakes. My family? His family? Um, not so much.

Okay, they hate it.

As much as I love this cake, it is not fun to have a birthday cake on my birthday that no one but me will eat.

Also, it’s damn hard to find this cake in Maine. Actually, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to find this cake in Maine.

So here’s what my brother and I do now:

  1. We call La Cascia’s Bakery and order the Italian Rum Cake with Strawberries (included) and Peaches (cost extra-pay it! it’s worth it!). You get to choose between whipped cream and buttercream frosting (WHIPPED CREAM FROSTING ROCKS!). You must decide if you want nuts on the outside or not-I can never decide so I order nuts on half of it. 🙂
  2. One of us picks up the cake and drives to the other’s house (we take turns hosting-this year is my brother’s turn).
  3. We split the cake. Literally. We each eat half. In our defense, we order the smallest one (serves 8-10 people in real life) they make.

That’s it. Problem solved! We love the cake! Our relatives are not subjected to it! Plus it’s June (my birthday was in May) and I am still eating birthday cake!

I did find a recipe for it (without the strawberries and peaches) on the Mangia Bene Pasta website, but there are something like a thousand steps in this recipe, so it’s pretty certain that I will never make it. Ever. I’d be too tired to eat it after all that.

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The Cake Fairy

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food

I went to lunch today and when I got back to my cubicle desk there was a cake there! a cake that I am sure was not there before I went to lunch!  this is clear evidence that the Cake Fairy is alive and well and was in Portland, Maine at 12:30PM today!

Is the Fairy and amazing baker? Possibly, but a little research reveals that the cake fairy is actually affiliated with Hannaford Supermarket, as evidenced by the sticker on the bottom of the cake package.

It contained a Chocolate Truffle Bomb. . . and it was the bomb!  I must say that the picture does not do it justice.

What’s your favorite kind of cake?