crazy cake request

Hi, blog. I haven't forgotten you. I'm super busy with the start of the semester.

 This past weekend we celebrated our friend Jared's birthday. Meg and I asked him what kind of cake he wanted and he responded, "well...something I've wanted for years is a chocolate chipotle blueberry cake...with cream cheese frosting." I responded with "cool, we'll do that" trying to mask the wtf thoughts going off in my head. Meg and I agreed to fulfill his wishes, compromising our baking reputation among our friends if necessary.

We used this recipe for chocolate chipotle cake that actually has a nutella cream cheese frosting. We cut back on half of the nutella in the frosting and replaced it with blueberry jam. In the middle layer, we added more blueberry jam (& some powdered sugar) to the frosting and used that as our filling.

Surprisingly, it turned out to be really good, although it's extremely rich. It's as close to a flourless cake without actually being one. I think one of our halves could have baked a couple minutes longer, only adding to the fudginess. Birthday boy was really happy with it.

The chipotle isn't noticable until you stop eating the cake and then you git a small kick. If you want to make a rich fudgy cake, this would be a hit (and you can skip the blueberry stuff).

Happy Birthday Daddy!

I'm posting this a little late in the day, but happy birthday dad! (Don't worry, I talked to him this morning too.) LOVE YOU!

and to everyone else...happy almost Friday!

Congratulatory Sausalito Cookies

Congrats Eric! This month has been really busy, including two different sets of parent visits, and Eric's graduation. Eric started college in Florida years ago and took a break for a few years to pursue music. He finished his degree here in Austin. I can't believe he's finally finished; every time his degree seemed to be in sight, an adviser would inform him about classes not transferring or there would be some really low level silly class he'd have to take.

He's had a fairly interesting experience being older than most students in his classes, usually coming through as an annoyance of their immaturity or lack of interest. He did get a lot of insight from me from the other side of the college classroom; he learned about all the pet peeves I have and how most professors get nervous still on the first day of class.

Bachelor of Economics! Woot! Instead of a cake, he requested I make Sausalito cookies (macadamia nuts & chocolate). I used this recipe and used dark, milk and white chocolate chunks. YUM.

birdies

I'm not sure what I love more about having a little yard: being able to go outside easily (and privately) or having a bird feeder. In May I took a quick trip to visit family and would sit for long periods of time watching the birds in my mom's backyard. She has several bird feeders, and bird baths, and can have a dozen birds hanging out on any given morning at one time. I've only put up one in our backyard, but there's a constant buzz around it. This little guy was even out there when the temp was over 100 today.

He kept hopping around on the roof for a while, with his mouth hanging open like that. Made me laugh.

My parents and cousin are coming in town for the weekend. Tana's never been to Austin before, so we've got to do some of the classics: the springs, watching the bats, showing off the headquarters Whole Foods, Gordough's donuts, etc etc.