Diary of a Surprise Birthday Cake

We have a resident pastry chef in house, my # 2 daughter.

She's pictured here with 2 of her sisters. Princess #1 who is the oldest. And her youngest sister, Miss D. Don't they just look fabulous? But that's not the point of this story. It began as a way to surprise me when I arrived home from Chicago where I had been celebrating my birthday with my 2 oldest kids who live there. We left the middle team home to hold down the fort and took the youngest 2 along for the ride.

It starts with the thought, the idea. So a recipe is found and the ingrediants are purchased.The process is started. This particular cake was the brainchild of my daughter who is a pastry chef in life, wanting to surprise me on my return from Chicago. Most of the concepts she learned at home, from me. Training as a chef enhances her skills and she secretely loves being able to one up me in the kitchen.

You have to love a Kitchen Aid mixer, the workhorse of baking. I have to admit it's looking good already. This was a birthday gift for the chef, since green is her favorite color. Mine is boring white, so we are using hers instead right now.

It’s all in the details. Cooking and baking can be kind of boring if you let it be. You can turn on Food Network on the kitchen tv. Better yet, just as I trained her, you can break open a bottle of wine and turn some tunes on. You can dance between tasks. A really mundane task can turn into a spectacular time. See how perfect the color and texture of the batter is?

When you’re baking a cake for this mama it’s going to have to have some home made buttercream frosting. It cannot be beat . I’m a frosting person and I prefer it heaped on.

Cleaning is not my pastry chef’s favorite past time but she does understand the importance of tidying up the equipment. She also understands her mother enough to know the surprise of the cake will be enhanced greatly if the kitchen is clean.

This girl knows how to frost a cake. Use the right tools. Same thing that’s true if you’re painting, cutting crown molding, installing ceramic tile. It’s all about the tools. Luckily her
culinary education included a nifty set of knives and tools. If you’ve ever watched Top Chef on Bravo you’ll notice each time someone is eliminated they roll up their knives and tool kit and head home.

My plated 3 layer Red Velvet cake with fluffy buttercream frosting. Ta da.

This mama thoroughly enjoyed the surprise of arriving home to a clean orderly house with a nice cake waiting for us. It put the icing on my whole birthday weekend. We felt a little worse for wear when we arrived home after 4 1/2 hours in the car, but I perked up enough to smile for this picture.

Much thanks to the chef and her photographer who make a photo journal of this process for her journalism class.