Zoe's First Birthday Party

My sweet Zoe turned one year old on Saturday and we threw a family party for her!  She has been the light of our lives since her arrival just one year ago...I can't believe how fast that year has come and gone!  We decided to do a "Wild about 1" theme.  Of course, there were a MILLION decoration options for the princess theme but I figured that we'd have PLENTY of those parties in the future, if she's anything like I was when I was little.  I made the flag banner for her and we pretty much just bought a few balloons and some streamers and called it a day for decorations.  I found very quickly how crazy you can get with the decorations but we weren't really budgeting for hundreds of dollars.  After all, it's not like she's going to remember most of it anyway.

My sister has been begging me to make Zoe a tutu so I decided to make her a birthday tutu with the theme colors.  I must admit, she looked darn cute in it although the poor thing couldn't really crawl around much in it so we put it on for pictures and then let her free.  We'll use it for professional pictures once she is walking anyway.  They are pretty easy to make it turns out!

Here it is.....the completed cake!  All in it's fondant glory:-)  My sister in law, Erin, is AMAZING and has taught herself how to put these puppies together.  She helped me with the decorating of the cake.  We almost had a disaster on our hands when we were trying to get the Zebra stripes to stick onto the white part.  It was making the fondant weaker and kept tearing apart every time we attempted to pick it up.  Erin managed to save it however and I think it turned out great, all things considered.  I think that next year, I'd like to learn how to use icing tips and decorate that way.  Fondant is a bit tricky.  It looks amazing but it doesn't taste all that great.  It was a fun experiment though and I enjoyed trying something new.

 

Here is Miss Zoe trying her cake out.  It's the first time she's had chocolate and I think she likes it.  After all, she's my daughter:-)  Steve grilled super YUMMY kebabs and we kind of had a Middle Eastern themed lunch with yellow rice, lamb, beef, chicken, and veggie kebabs and homemade Persian flat bread.

Zoe got way spoiled with presents this year.  Of course, her favorite things were tearing the wrapping paper and playing with the bows.  All in all, I think she had fun!  I know the adults certainly did:-)

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY TO OUR SWEET ZOE!

It's been a joy having her in our lives and we love her SO much!

The Birthday Cake Experiment

Today began my the first day of the birthday cake assembly.  You may think that I am crazy, and you may be right, but there are people that start this WEEKS in advance!  That seems a little too over the top for me, plus I can't imagine that the cake would taste any good after sitting around for a week or two, just saying.  Anyway, since it's Zoe's first birthday and she's my first baby, I HAD to go a little crazy for her birthday, right?!  Anyway, I decided to keep it a basic yellow cake with a whipped chocolate ganache middle and chocolate buttercream icing on the outside.  I'm going to decorate and cover it with marshmallow fondant tomorrow with my sister in law, Erin, so I will post the completed pictures tomorrow.  I have to say, the cake turned out really good.  I was a bit over exuberant with my ingredients so I ended up with enough to make a small sheet cake to taste.  Steve was very disappointed in having to taste test...lol.  I got all my recipes online at various recipe websites.  I just chose them based on the reviews they had.  I really liked how the yellow cake turned out.  I must admit, I have never actually made a yellow cake from scratch before!  After making this, however, I've decided it is SO much yummier.  Here's the website I found it at if you're interested:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/07/best-birthday-cake/

I didn't use the frosting recipe she recommended just because I was "dirty" icing the cake for fondant and I wasn't sure if her frosting would work well with it but it looks good too.  I will have to try it another time.  Instead, I just used a basic chocolate buttercream icing recipe.

Believe it or not, I took this picture AFTER I had iced the cake.  Yes, I went a little overboard on the icing.  I was just nervous about not having enough since I was making a double decker cake.  For the center of the cake I made a whipped chocolate ganache frosting.  Here's a picture of it before I whipped it:

If you like dark chocolate, holy hannah...is this the icing for you!!!  Yumm-O!  I just got the recipe for this from the Food Network website.  It's an Alton Brown recipe although it's pretty darn basic and you can find similar recipes all over the internet:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/ganache-frosting-recipe/index.html

When I started putting the parts of the cake together, I was a little afraid that the ganache would be too soft and cause the cake to slip and slide off but it held together.  I'm hoping a night in the refrigerator will help it solidify.  Here's the semi-finished product (tomorrow is decorating day!):

I thought I did a pretty darn good job for this being my first time for a huge cake.  I really enjoyed myself today too.  Maybe this is a hobby that I can start getting into.  We'll see:-)  Anyway, I will post pictures of the finished product soon and, of course, pictures of the birthday party too.  We are doing a "Wild about 1" theme for Miss Zoe.  Zebra print, hot pink and lime green!  Should be fun:-)