Groovy Birthday

Jeff and I hosted a family birthday dinner last weekend and I was challenged with the task of creating a cake that worked for both an elegant 40-something year old woman and an 11 year old skater boy. It took the elimination of a few brainstorms before I came up with a plan that worked. I have to credit my very colourful niece with the original idea. Thanks R!!

I wanted to make a fat free cake so started with 2 white cake mixes and 2 cans of diet Ginger Ale. That's it! I added these 4 items together and mixed until smooth.

I wanted something a little more exciting than plain white cake, so divided the batter into 6 bowls and added gel colouring to colour each bowl of batter a different colour. I used gel because it gives much more intense colour than liquid colour and does not water down the batter. It's readily available at craft stores and I have even noticed it at a few grocery stores as well.

NOTE- because I'm cheap, I didn't spring for the 8 colour gel pack ( at a whopping $16) and just bought red, yellow and blue and mixed colours from there.

Now for assembly: I stated by adding 3 large dollops of different coloured batter to the pan and continued with a second layer of batter dollops, added on top of the first. The batter spread out with each layer of batter and it seemed that the more imperfect the circles were, the better they looked.

I started out with three 'towers' of batter in each pan- next time I'll just go with four.







I layered the leftover batter into muffin cups. In the interest of being pretty, I didn't fill them very full. Next time, I'll probably skip the cupcakes all together and fill up the cake pans to the brim- this cake collapses quite a bit when it cools (and all those ginger ale bubbles disappear).

Bake as directed and voila! I cut each layer in half and made a quadruple layer birthday cake with a light pudding and cool whip frosting.



It really was psychedelically, groovy-good. And it looked pretty cool when we cut into it as well. I should have caught photos of the inside finished product but we ate it all up.

End of summer

It's been a wonderful summer with great travels, wonderful weather and lots of fun with family and friends. A few final images as I unpack our fall sweaters; Jeff caught the the last of the bees in our bamboo blossoms and I compiled just some of this year's bumper crop of roses.

When hanging out the laundry today, I looked up and saw that the leaves are changing. That means it's going to start raining and we'll have to give up the heavenly smell of clothesline-dried fresh sheets.
















We recently started making homemade ice cream- obviously, a hit with Jeff! While it will certainly continue through the winter, I don't think it will quite be the same.