Photo by the amazing Tonya Beaver Photography
That wonderful husband celebrated a milestone birthday on Dec. 30. He didn't want a party....and definitely not a surprise party. Nevertheless, I wanted to make it a special day for him.
We often go out to dinner for our birthdays, but he requested that for this birthday I make him dinner and cupcakes for a celebration at home. Occasions like this are when my "must be like Martha Stewart" instinct kicks in. It's a special event, so every element needs to be as perfect as a party that Martha would throw.
I, however, like Liz Lemon, am blessed with some spazzy tendencies. These characteristics plus the added pressure I put on myself in the wake of a special event usually only result in more "incidents" and this was no exception!
The first task I set out to complete was baking the birthday cupcakes. George loves dark chocolate and chocolate mousse, so when I found a recipe for dark chocolate cupcakes filled with chocolate mousse, I thought it would be perfect. I quickly looked up a chocolate mousse recipe to go along with it.
I started off with making the chocolate mousse. But before I could even get started, I sustained my first cooking-related injury. I dropped an entire bottle of canola oil on my foot. Now that might not sound like it would be painful. Unfortunately it is in reality...I yelped and hobbled around for a few minutes saying ahhhh! (a la Peter Griffin). The next day a nice bruise appeared on top of my foot.
But I forged ahead on my mousse mission. In typical Cindy fashion, I followed the recipe obsessively. I read through it a few times before beginning, then re-read each step at least twice before completing it. Despite this diligence, rather than the mousse turning out dark chocolate, fluffy and delicious like it did in the picture. Rather, the ratio of chocolate to cream was off. There was way too much cream in relation to chocolate. In addition, because the chocolate was set aside, it started to dry and didn't fold well into the cream and egg whites.
The panic started to set in. Upon showing the creation to my husband, it was confirmed that what was in the bowl was not chocolate mousse. A few tears later, it went into the trash...and my sweet husband suggested I take a break from baking and we went to lunch.
After we got home, it was back to the drawing board in the kitchen. Since the mousse was a no-go, I had to make some changes to the cupcake plan. George had a suggestion for the type of icing he would like, so I decided to use that icing to top the original cupcake recipe I had found, minus the mousse filing.
The cupcakes themselves turned out okay...but the icing my husband selected turned into an undertaking. It required mixing the ingredients over heat until they reach a certain temperature. After bringing in an extension cord so the hand mixer could reach the stove, my hubby himself decided it was best for him to mix the icing. Try as we might, we could not get the confection to reach the temperature it was supposed to but it looked right so we removed it from the stove and I proceeded with the recipe. In the end...it was pretty much like melted marshmallows. That's not bad except George isn't a huge fan of marshmallows. But I was pleased with how the finished product turned out and looked on my cake stand.
So then it was time to begin making dinner. I was a little tired and perhaps a little distracted. I got the new vegetable peeler we recently bought to replace our old one that broke to peel potatoes for mashed potatoes. I didn't even get one full peel in on a potato when I got my finger instead and started screaming. My husband came to my aid and dealt with the aftermath. I'll spare you the details but it was not pretty.
More tears later and after being bandaged up, I made the epiphany that lead to the creation of this blog when I quipped to my husband "I try really hard to be like Martha Stewart but end up being more like Liz Lemon."
After my run-in with the veggie peeler, I made extra sure to be very careful throughout the preparation of the rest of the meal and all turned out well!
Main Dish - Pork Tenderloin
The spread
The birthday boy!
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