Birthday Deliciousness

I'm a lucky girl. I turned 31 over the weekend, and I was overwhelmed with good wishes from family and friends. Mr. Wonderful, of course, was a big part of that. He gave me some lovely gifts, but what's really impressed folks so far (if my coworkers are a representative sample of "folks") is that he baked my requested birthday dessert item: Mexican Caramel Cheesecake. Not attrociously unhealthy (I know, can you believe it?), and so, so, so yummy.

On Sunday, my mother took a stab at a celebratory birthday dessert. I say "took a stab at" in jest, because she's an extremely talented cake decorator. So much so, in fact, that she'll be making our wedding cake. She used this year's birthday cake as a trial run for doing a tiered cake in swiss meringue buttercream frosting, with dowels (well, drinking straws, cut to size) holding up the top tier.



Not bad, eh? The wedding cake will be white, and sans chocolate chips, but you get the idea. And, I should add, the frosting was applied to the cake in about 15 minutes, by my estimate. Impressive indeed.