Monday, March 31, 2008

And he still has his boyish good looks

B's birthday is tomorrow. Yes, that's right. April Fool's Day. Despite all of the shenanigans that could have come from an April Fool's Day party, we opted to celebrate on Saturday instead of Tuesday. We had more people over than we've ever had in our house at once. And we put them straight to work.

Making pasta! We had two pasta rollers at our disposal (mine and a friend's), so our rolling was reasonably efficient. Lots of people brought filling (artichoke, asparagus, ricotta, sun dried tomato, pepper, mushroom, gorgonzola, pear, you name it), and our friends proved very accomplished at stuffing ravioli. In the end, we had four types of ravioli, plain fettucine, and green fettucine. Turns out pasta dough, much like play-doh, can be dyed with food coloring. Fun! (The really fun part was when guests asked if it was spinach. I would just say, "...no..." and watch the look of horror slowly evolve on their faces. Hilarious.)

It was quite the undertaking, but it was worth it. You know what else was worth it? This cake. The first two birthdays that Brandon had while we've been dating went without cake baked by me. The first time we were in Chicago for a conference (I bought cupcakes at the Corner Bakery). The second time I was on my internal medicine rotation which was more intense than it needed to be (torte from Whole Foods). This time, I wanted to do it right. He told me he wanted chocolate and raspberry, so this is what he got: almost flourless chocolate torte topped with chocolate mousse topped with unsweetened whipped cream topped with overpriced raspberries. All told, that cake contained 3/4 lb butter, 9 eggs, 16 oz chocolate and 1 c cream. And a little sugar, flour, vanilla, and salt. If it weren't consumed by 14 people, I'd be concerned for the state of our arteries.

3 comments:

Tam said...

aww you are such a good little wify! Remind me to email you the picture of the first (and last) time I made Jeremy a cake - lets just say I have had to work on my kitchen skills. It looks like you planned a really fun party and the cake looks amazing!!

Anonymous said...

oofta - that cake looks dense! (and yummy) It looks like the evening was a success. And as we didn't dye eggs this year for the solstice, I'm glad that something got dyed.

Anonymous said...

Chocolate and raspberry...now there's a flavor combination for you -- though I'd rather it were for me!