My Ultimate Birthday Cake

I spent my actual birthday on an airplane heading back from Portland so we had some friends (and their adorable children, above) over last night for a cookout to celebrate.  We had a great time (and a rousing game of trivial pursuit), but really the reason for the party was to give me an excuse to bake myself the ultimate chocolate cake.  Nearly a foot tall, this cake made me very, very happy.

I know to some people, making your own birthday cake seems a little sad.  To me, this is my chance to have EXACTLY the cake I wanted.  I find most store-bought and restaurant chocolate cakes disappointing, with all sugar and almost no chocolate flavor.  I had been planning to make a chiffon cake and improvise a whipped chocolate ganache filling with a poured chocolate ganache icing when I came across almost that exact recipe in a Food Network magazine by dad gave me.

The chiffon cake is made with oil in place of butter so it has a supremely light and tender texture.  This particular cake is also made with strong coffee which brings out the dark chocolate of the cocoa powder.  I used a 70% cacao chocolate for the ganache so both the filling and icing had an intense and slightly bitter quality which  kept the cake from being overly sweet.  That, combined with the tartness of the raspberries I beat into the whipped ganache made for the sort of cake you could eat a big ol' slice of.  Which is exactly what I did.

Laissez les bons temps rouler

As a great lover of pancakes, I like the Lutheran tradition of a tall stack of flapjacks for Shrove Tuesday.  But imported Louisiana gumbo, zydaco music, and a Tuesday evening spent with friends is even better.

Even though I knew there was another king cake coming, I couldn't resist making these king cake cupcakes.  I think they should have been baked at a lower temperature and for less time, but the end result tasted a lot like the store-bought version.  I remembered for the third or fourth time that I don't really like most king cakes that much.  But don't worry, I have a plan for next year...

Geoff found the baby in the (store-bought) king cake which means he has to bring one next year.  I'm hoping he'll let me make it - I'm already plotting a king cake based on a cinnamon-roll with a cream cheese filling.  Perhaps not the most traditional version; but as long as it has plenty of butter, I figure it remains Fat Tuesday appropriate.

...And we're back!

Wow!  I can't believe four months has passed since I last posted - well, I suppose I can because a lot has changed since then.  In December, I graduated from Penn State and two days later we hopped in the car to start the drive to Texas.

The quintessential PSU graduation photo.

Graduation was exciting - if for no other reason than this is probably the most fabric I've ever had on my body at once.  Geoff calls these my Tycho Brahe robes, but they don't include a silver nose.  My friend Julia and I were able to walk together at the ceremony, five and a half years after we started together in the department.

The Doctors.

The actual hooding took place while we were at our seats in the auditorium so Mark and I staged some photos ahead of time.  This is right before he taught me the secret handshake.

Pomp and Circumstance indeed.

My family all flew out for the ceremony and my friend Sarah drove up from DC.

Trying not to look bored

It made me feel all warm and fuzzy that they all sat there for two hours just so they could see this:

That's me on the left after shaking President Spanier's hand.

My best supporter!

It was wonderful to have Geoff and my family there to share in my graduation because I couldn't have done it without them.

Proud parents of TWO graduates in one year.

After graduation, we had a lot of people over for a party - a lot!  It was freezing cold outside but the house was so full people were on the porch.  It was really touching that so many people came out to say goodbye!  Geoff's band played and we stayed up way too late with about 50 of our bestest friends.  

The trouble with graduate school is that there is a built in end date - almost everyone has, is, or soon will be moving on to somewhere else.  For me, my time at Penn State wasn't just about earning a degree, it was the time when I grew most as a person, met the love of my life, and made some of the best friends I have ever had.  

End of Summer

The end of summer has been a little unusual for me this year.  For the past 25 years, summer has ended when I either started classes or started teaching.  For the first time in my memory, neither of those things is happening this September.  Nevertheless, the nights are getting colder and fall is most decidedly around the corner.  To cap off my summer, I had an AMAZING Labor Day weekend.

On Saturday morning, I got up at 8:30 to catch a bus down to the football stadium for my first ever Penn State football game which I felt was something that I just had to experience before I left.  My awesome friend Tracy had an extra ticket and took me along to the pre-game and post-game tailgate hosted by a friend of hers.  The noon game meant that the pre-game tailgating involved cinnamon rolls baked in a propane-fueled oven on the back of a pick-up truck.  And don't think that we were the only ones tail-gating at 9am.  Penn State fans are nothing if not dedicated.  The stadium (which seats well over 100,000 individuals) was about 3/4 full for this game but that still means that 75,000 people were there!

It was chilly and windy but we had a great time watching Penn State win 44-7 over the Youngstown State Penguins.  I never did figure out where they got that mascot.  The Star Trek tribute at half time was particularly awesome.

After the game, more tailgating, this time with burgers and beers.  Then I had to head home to get ready for Laurel's birthday party and the Wilcox Hotel Reunion show!!!!  Laurel loves animals and so I made her some birthday cookies with woodland creatures cookie cutters I found at IKEA.

I took the pictures quickly on the way out the door so if you can't tell there is a moose, a squirrel, a bear, a wolf, a snail, and a porcupine.  My favorite is the porcupine because of how I was able to make the spines.  If I have more time to devote to these cookie cutters in the future, I'll definitely want to add more details, but I sort of enjoy the simplicity of just the plain icing and eyes.

 The Wilcox Hotel show was phenomenal.  So many of our friends were back in town and I think we were all purely euphoric.  The rough thing about any college town is that most people are transitory and so most of my good friends from Penn State have already moved on to other jobs all over the country.  Having so many of them back and hearing Wilcox play took me back to Spring 2008 when we were all together and going to Wilcox shows twice a week.  Is it weird to be nostalgic for two years ago?  I didn't get many good pictures, but everyone had a phenomenal time.  It sounded something like this:

I forget how spoiled I am to always have Geoff around playing music and in particular to get to go watch him play great music like this with our awesome friends who I love and miss.  We didn't get to see them for long enough as almost everyone left on Sunday, but our friend Maria is in town from Mexico for a while so we got to hang out on Monday for a relaxed evening of grilling and bocce.  A great end to a fantastic weekend.

Better late than never?

Okay, two blog posts coming today because that is what I promised those of you who are threatening to mutiny if I don’t update soon. Fall is definitely here. The floorboard heaters kicked on the other day because they are set to come on when the temperature dips below 50. The sun is setting earlier and earlier and I’ve taken to keeping a quilt in the living room to curl up under (specifically a t-shirt quilt my mom made – she’s where I got the crafty).

Work has been more than a little overwhelming lately. In part because, as I have realized recently, I tend to underestimate the amount of time that tasks will take me by a factor of between 3 and 5. The last week, I’ve been off by about 10. So that is my excuse for taking three weeks to finally post the pictures from Sarah’s baby shower (note that in my last post on Sept 21 I promised them "tomorrow" - never believe me when I say that). I picked a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme so the guests were greeted by this window display which I put up the day before and got a lot of weird looks from neighbors:



To complete the theme, I made a banner of all the foods the caterpillar eats and my lemon cupcakes with caterpillar green frosting became a caterpillar with help from some construction paper.



Because I am who I am, I foisted my love of crafts onto the guests. Here they are painting onesies and making baby blocks.





When Sarah and Erick told Geoff and I they were pregnant, Sarah said “Do you remember when we made those onesies for Kat? Can we do it again for me?” So of course we had to make onesies again. We used freezer paper stencils and it couldn’t be simpler. The results were soooo cute that I’ve already promised to turn them into a quilt once Sarah and Erick’s little girl outgrows them.








The geisha girl, the lei, and the Yankees onesies are mine. I also made a man-friendly (so that Erick would carry it) diaper bag which was the first time I ever worked with elastic, Velcro, and zippers and I filled the bag with some more handmade gifts.





My favorite is the Humpty-Dumpty which has snapped on arms and legs so he can fall apart and be put back together again. The puppets are actually made out of terry-cloth so that they can be used as washcloths. I just freehanded the designs and they came out pretty well (I can't draw at all, seriously, it looks like I'm missing my arms and learned to hold a pen with my toes). Then there is a tag ball made of scrap fabric and bits of ribbon. Evidently, babies like to grab and suck on tags? The sweater was made by my mom from the pattern she learned from her mom and taught to me. I love the stripes and purple is Sarah’s favorite color. The mushroom thing there is a rattle and the caterpillar has a squeaky dog toy in its head, the red contains a crunchy cat toy, and the orange has a bell cat toy in it. All of this was extremely irritating to Hank because she didn’t get to play with it. The ruby slippers seemed appropriate from a Kansas girl and the little kimono shoes are just so cute that I had to make them. Sarah had a great time and I believe her because she cried repeatedly, which is a sign of happiness in pregnant women.

Speaking of pregnant women, I want to welcome the newest member of my family. My cousin Kimmie gave birth yesterday to Wyatt Eric and I can’t wait to meet him!