Birthday Fun

My nephew Kieran just turned 1 year old and my sister asked if I'd make cupcakes for his birthday party; she thought cupcakes would be easier for him to handle then a cake. Of course I said yes! However, after talking to my mom I decided to make him a little cake too, after all, you only turn 1 once.

I decided to keep things simple so I made vanilla bean cupcakes with vanilla bean butter cream frosting. I absolutely love using real Madagascar vanilla beans! They make such a difference in the flavor and seeing all the little flecks of vanilla in the batter/frosting made me want to eat them all!

For the cake i decided to use my giant cupcake cake pan to keep with the cupcake theme. I made Devil's Chocolate Cake (From the Martha Stewart Cupcakes Book) with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting. I was definitely nervous about making this because I had only used the cake pan once before with disastrous results. I don't think I greased the pan enough and the cake wouldn't come out of the pan with out crumbling to pieces. This time I greased the pan as much as possible, making sure to get every little nook and cranny. Then I crossed my fingers and said a little prayer...

The cupcakes were simple vanilla but simply amazing! I'm not a huge fan of butter cream (give me a cream cheese frosting any day) but this one was very good. My husband even declared it "the perfect vanilla butter cream"! My only critique came from my brother-in-law who said he would have preferred more cake and I think i agree with him. This was my first time using an ice cream scoop to fill the cake liners so i wasn't used to doing it that way. Next time I will definitely fill the liners with slightly more batter. 

The chocolate cake was sooooo yummy! The consistency and flavor was perfect, as was the frosting! And I was so happy the cake actually came out of the pan. My only disappointment was the bottom portion of the cupcake cake. I had originally planned to make a cupcake liner for the cake by making a mold of the pan with melted chocolate. I read online and found several people who had done it and said it looked great. The only problem was getting the hardened chocolate off and out of the pan once it was cooled. I tried flipping it upside down and tapping it out, I tried dipping the pan in hot water really quickly to warm it up slightly. In the end i gave up and chipped it all out. I'm going to continue to research this and try to find a solution. Clearly it can be done as i saw online.

Overall, the party was a success and everyone enjoyed a little sweetness!