50 Shades of Pink

Someone turned the big 5-0 yesterday!  Guess who?  Miss Annie Gardner!  So, of course, I decided to throw a last minute party for her.  

Sunday afternoon while I was nice and relaxed on the couch watching t.v. I decided to bake Annie a birthday cake.  Sophie loves to bake so I knew she'd be happy with the idea, too.

Here is Sophia eating the flour, baking powder, salt mixture.  Really, Soph?  It's that good?

I promise she washed her hands before we started!

Now we are greasing the pans and cutting the parchment paper to fit.  She may or may not have licked the butter....

 The cakes turned out really flat....I think that is a good thing.  :)

I used the Classic White Cake Layers recipe out of the Perfect Cakes book, by Nick Malgieri.  It called for unsalted butter, but I used regular.  I am not driving 14 miles round-trip to get unsalted butter.  So, therefore, I just decreased the amount of salt it called for.  I also added in some almond extract.  I am a lover of almond extract.

Now it was time to make the buttercream frosting.  Do you say frosting or icing?  I used the Vanilla Buttercream Frosting recipe out of Southern Living's Our Best-Ever Cakes & Pies magazine.  The shade of pink is called Dusty Rose.  I use the soft gel paste food color by AmeriColor.  It is the best.

Here is the finished product.  Yes, that's glitter!  Edible glitter.  

The following picture should have been ahead of the one above.  Anyway, I thought the cake needed to have a filling.  This is called Creme Anglaise.  It is a custard cream.  Think about creme brulee. I thought that it'd be thick enough for a filling of a cake.  Well, it's more of a sauce.  A very, very good sauce.  So to thicken it I just added in some vanilla instant pudding mix!  Tada!  It worked.  This recipe is out of the Perfect Cakes book.  

Creme Anglaise can be used as a sauce poured over fruit, cakes, pancakes, bread pudding.  So, so good.

After all of that hard work slaving away in the kitchen I thought the cake deserved to have a party.  :)  So, you know me, Miss Last-Minute Planner, I threw a birthday party for Annie last night.  The birthday girl, Grandma Carol, Emily, Travis, Cal, Katie, Chris, Tim, Jody, Grandpa Ray and Patty all were present.

Tim and Jody got this card for Annie.  This fits Annie PERFECTLY.  hahaha

 Sophia has a talking and dancing Mickey Mouse.  Cal loved it!

Happy Birthday, Annie!!  Make a wish!!!  She told me her wish, but it is not appropriate enough to tell you on here.  

Just kidding!  I don't know what she wished for.  

The party was fun!  It is always nice when family can spend time together, especially in the middle of January.

A little extra effort and some last minute planning was all it took to make some more happy memories.

Love,

Sarah

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Thanks!