Happy Birthday Mario!

I can't believe, I won't believe it!  My grandson is 3 years old already!

When my daughter called to tell me the party details, I asked her what she wanted for a cake.  She asked my grandson, who screamed MARIO!!!!!!

I did some digging and found a few ideas for cakes.  My daughter had told me there would be several of the neighborhood kids at the party, so I thought cupcakes for little hands might be better.  I decided to do a combination of cupcakes and a smaller cake.

I used my go-to chocolate cake recipe for 1 layer of the cake and half the cupcakes:

2 C flour
2 C sugar
6 Tbsp cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 C warm water
2/3 C oil
2 Tbsp vinegar
2 tsp vanilla (or 1/2 tsp mint) extract

I then went to work trying to find a white cake to match the moisture of the chocolate.  I have tried and tried with little result.  However, this particular cake came close:

Ingredients

• 1¼ cups sifted all purpose flour
• 1½ cups sifted cake flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1½ cups sugar
• ⅔ cup vegetable oil
• ⅓ cup vegetable shortening at room temperature
• 3 tablespoons good quality vanilla extract (if you want pure white use clear vanilla extract)
• 3 large eggs
• 1½ cups buttermilk

Instructions

1. Sift together both flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar. Set aside.
2. Grease and flour 2 nine inch round cake pans and line the bottom with 2 circles of parchment paper.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer beat together the vegetable oil, shortening and vanilla. Beat well at high speed with whisk attachment until light and fluffy
4. Beat the eggs in one at a time.
5. Fold in the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk.
6. I always add dry ingredients in three divisions and liquid ingredients in 2 divisions. It is very important to begin and end the additions with the dry ingredients. Do not over mix the batter. As soon as it has no lumps in the batter, pour into the two prepared 9 inch cake pans.
7. Bake at 325 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pans for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely.

Now I went to work...I made a standard 8-inch, 2-layer cake and a total of 20 cupcakes.  I decorated the cupcakes like the little mushroom people in the video games.  I then made the actual cake to look like a scene from the video game.  Here's the problem!  My grandson's birthday was in late March, and we were still in the middle of very cold weather for the date.  However, my husband insisted that the cake would be destroyed during the trip unless I held it (umm...think I know how to transport cakes, but whatever).  I wanted to leave for the party without incident, so I gave in.  Big mistake!  It was a rare sunny day that day, and the sun beating in the car started to melt the cake!  My green hills were becoming green puddles.  Luckily, I cheated and used a Mario toy for the top of the cake.  I shudder to think of what poor Mario would have looked like after the trip.

When we got to my daughter's house, I put the cake in the fridge for a few minutes and then did my best to reconstruct my scene.  Everyone loved it, but I was still stewing about my poor judgment listening to my husband.  LOL.  I won't make that mistake again!  

At the end of the day, the most important part was the fact that my grandson jumped up and down yelling Mario cake, Mario cake, thank you Mimi! the whole afternoon.  Some day maybe I can learn to look past the imperfections...

New Year cake

When I think about New Year's Eve, I think about parties.  I think about how I celebrated New Year's Eve in my youth.  One year we played a game where every hour, at the top of the hour, we celebrated the new year as it became midnight in each time zone.  Oh my...what can I say?  We were young and dumb.

Now that I am a little more.....mature and I have a little more common sense, my new year was rung in by planning this cake and cruising around Pinterest (I like to live on the edge these days).  I barely made it to midnight.

This morning, even though not 1 drop of adult beverage was consumed, I still felt like I was hung over.  I decided to cheat on the cake and make a box cake.  I did, however, spruce it up a bit.  I added an additional egg.  I used butter instead of vegetable oil, and I used milk instead of water.  These little substitutions make all the difference if you must use a box cake mix.

When my husband dragged himself downstairs a little later, I asked him what kind of frosting he wanted.  He requested chocolate fudge.  I found a recipe on line that looked perfect.  Something went awry when I made it though.  It closely resembled the fudge batter I made last month for Christmas.  I knew it would not spread to cover the cake so I put it between the layers of the cake.  I found another recipe (here) and made yet more substitutions.  This recipe called for fudge topping.  I didn't have any of that, but I did have a bag of milk chocolate chips hanging around.  I melted them up in the microwave and added them.  I did need to add more milk than the recipe called for after I added the chocolate chips.

I had delusions of grandeur when I thought about the decorations.  I had chocolate fireworks made in about 4 different colors.  I had my confetti.  I had my little rolled up things...whatever they are supposed to be.  I started putting the fireworks on the cake and it looked awful.  Take 2 - get all of that off of the cake and just go with the confetti and those little rolled up things (which I was pretty proud of, BTW.  Fondant cut and wrapped around a straw to dry).

After our traditional pork dinner (minus the sauerkraut), it was time to reveal the cake.  Everyone seemed to like it a lot.  I guess today was not the day to count calories...

Happy New Year!