hearts, strawberries and buttercream

I originally was planning on just posting these pics yesterday for Wordless Wednesday... but I left my camera at my dad's and that idea went right out the window.  So I'll have to come up with a witty narrative to go along with them.

My dad's wife decided that she wanted to throw my dad a surprise birthday party on saturday because his birthday is on the 16th and on a tuesday (who does that??).  So she enlisted my "help" because since I'm home all day and she doesn't drive we make a great pair.  Ok, I like to do party planning stuff... and for some unknown reason I volunteered to make the birthday cake.  I think since I was fresh on the heels of a successful spiderman cake, I was feeling very confident. 

WHAT???  I'm making the birthday cake? two tiered (which I had never done before), filled with strawberry jam, in heart shapes, and oh you want fresh berries on it too... Ok.  I can do that.   WHAT, WHAT, WHAT???  I think I was sniffing too much glue or something  (I DO NOT SNIFF GLUE!!! Its just a saying), but since I had already volunteered I had to go all or nothing.

So I bought the heart shaped cake pans, and pulled a receipe for butter cake with a touch of almond flavoring- which is yummilicious!, and decided screw it... I'll make it and if it comes out inedible or ugly, there's always the Dutch Kitchen down the street and we can pick up a cake on saturday morning.

Oh, and did I mention that I also volunteered to make the food!  Now apparently I'm a catering service as well.  I must have been hitting the glue jar hard that day!   Any hoo... I decided on making chicken breasts stuffed with spinach, mozzarella and ricotta cheese with tomatoe sauce and shredded cheese, as well as a coleslaw that is to die for!

So, I began with the cake on friday night... I made my batter, greased my pans, and filled them with batter and popped them into the oven.  Then about 40 minutes later my house was filled with that wonderful aroma of fresh baked cake.

So I first cut off the pouffy middle piece so that my cake would sit flat, and let the cake cool in the pan.

Then I popped the cake out of the pan and let it cool on a wire rack.

Now came the fun part... since I have never made a two-tiered cake, I read a bit online at the Wilton's website and figured, its easy enough, I can do it.  So I put the tiers on, and frosted the cakes... not the BEST frosting job, but could be worse.

 

Then I decided on this rope frosting border around the bottoms of the cakes, to add some pizzaz.

Then I added the strawberries around the border of the cakes to add color and outline the heart shapes.

Looking good...

I want to eat it everytime I look at it!!!

Taa - Daaaaaaahhh!!!! The finished cake!

Soooooo...... what do you think???

Let me tell you that it tastes as good as it looks.  I used strawberry jam to fill the middle of both tiers.  I looked at it and could hardly believe that I, ME... had made this cake!

Now, being my own worse critic, this is pretty good props.  BUT I still had to see what everyone else thought.  I always worry that others will not like my cooking or baking.

WELL, let me tell you... my dad saw the cake and asked me why I had bought a cake for his birthday when he knows I could have made it myself!?  What? Really?  I was sooo happy.  I couldn't believe he actually thought that I had bought him the cake!  Well... everyone was impressed with the cake and they couldn't say enough about how yummy it was.

Then when everyone ate, they raved about the stuffed chicken breasts and coleslaw!  I was so happy and proud of myself.  And yes, I am tooting my own horn... this is MY blog after all...and if I can't brag a little here then WHERE is one expected to be able to brag????  ;o)

So, we had a great time, my dad was surprised, and everyone ate and loved the food, and we celebrated my dad's birthday as well as Valentine's Day.  All in all it was fun.

Oh and we also celebrated my cousin's birthday which conveniently is shared with my dad's!!!

This was supposed to be a pic of just me, Carlos Sebastian and my dad... when the camera flashed ALL these jokers were in the picture!  That would be my cousin Juancho, my sister Mitzi (right behind me), my cousin Ferno, birthday boy Rob, my aunt Carmen, and my dad looking like he's had one to many glasses of champagne!

This one I'm putting here because I love this pic... aren't they handsome???

Ok, so I tried to get this picture about 5 times!  In each one, either Sebastian or Tyler weren't looking!  So this is as good as it gets!

Oh, and this is Sebastian sitting up alone for the first time!  He can now sit alone for upwards of a half hour! My baby is getting sooo big!

Ok... so other than that... this week has been occupied with Tyler having the stomach bug since SUNDAY!!!  Yes he is on day 5 of this stupid virus, and just when I think he is feeling better he gets sick again!  Like last night... ALL over the bathroom!  Now let me tell you if there are things in life that I do not like the top two are 1. cleaning up vomit and 2. cleaning the bathroom.  Can you tell me what I did wrong to deserve to have to clean a pukey bathroom last night????  But after cleaning up the bathroom and cleaning up Tyler, he went to bed, and is once again claiming to be feeling well.  I'm not buying it today!  I have him on a strick toast, chicken soup and flat coca cola diet!  We are getting rid of this stomach flu TODAY!

So that's everything.  Now I'm off to tend to my sleepy Sebastian that is about seconds from falling asleep in his jumpy! 

;o)