birthday baby cakes

We celebrated Irwin's birthday over the weekend, had a mini staycation downtown, got a suite at the InterContinental - and I wanted to live there F O R E V E R. Had a few drinks with a couple of his close friends at Fuse and laughed at all the 18+ looking cats who were most likely our age or older. Sunday Irwin's parents had family over for his birthday, his cousin's birthday, and for his cousin who was visiting with her 5 month old baby, Davis. I wanted to bite his cheeks they were so fat. Fat babies are the best. And his lashes! Wow. I wanted to keep him.

Then there was SOOOooo much good food! Who needs Boiling Crab when Irwin's mom makes the BEST garlic crab EVER. Feasted on so much food, and indulged in the two cakes I made (1 by request from his mom, the other.. I just wanted to make it) I had decided to take a break from making cake pops and venture into my second goal - cakes. The first cake is Zuccotto, which is an Italian dessert cake that I used to make all the time.. like 2 years ago. It's almost like tiramisu but firmer. Aside from Paula Deen, Giada is my favorite when it comes to following dessert recipes which is where I found the Zuccotto recipe. The actual birthday cake was a recipe from Julia Child, her Reine de Saba, or Chocolate Almond cake. In my head, I had the idea to have a thin slice of each cake, one on top of the other, and oh em gee. It was heaven in my mouth. The chocolate cake ended up being more dense than I thought, but it was perfect pairing it with a slice of Zuccotto.

All in all, it was a great weekend.