Happy Anniversary, Dinner is Served!

Brian booze
Happy Birthday, Brian!

Last week I hit my 3-year anniversary with both the blog and Brian! Can you believe it? I can’t. I seriously can’t. I don’t know the last time I committed to something this long that wasn’t a loveless, soul-sucking relationship completely lacking intimacy, honesty and anything remotely resembling a fit physique (that includes me. I never thought about a gym, let alone join one).

Ah, good times!

Anyway, three frickin’ years! Color me shocked.

To commemorate 3 years, I did almost precisely what I did for my two-year anniversary—hang out with Todd and Leah and bake a cake.

I looked back at some posts and realized that it probably seems like all I do is hang out at thir place. That’s totally not true.  Although this is their welcome sign at their apartment:

The likeness is uncanny, amiright?

The only thing we’re missing is Marty the dog.

On Sunday they threw an Oscar Party. Complete with champagne and an Oscar Meyer Wiener Hot Dog Bar complete with Skyline chili and cheese.

hot dog bar
It’s been a while since a hot dog was on the blog

It was perfect. Totally hit the spot.

And I brought dessert. I went with a ‘golden’ theme for the evening and selected recipes from Better Homes & Gardens Pies and Cakes. This was my goal, the Yellow Cake Deluxe:

Yellow Cake Deluxe
Pretty!
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No one should doubt my cake baking mastery!
Yellow Cake Deluxe Recipe
Lemon filling. Yum.
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Carried on the theme with my frosting selection

031I gathered all of my ingredients. I thought that this would be a breeze. Of course, I messed up in a huge way in the first step: I counted sugar as a dry ingredient and threw it in with the flour and stuff instead of creaming it with the butter and the eggs.

I could see how mixing the sugar with the butter initially would be a good thing,  but I decided to forge ahead and just mix in the dry ingredients (including sugar) and the milk!

The resulting batter was very, very thick. And lumpy. Just lumps of butter. So I mixed it longer to try to smooth it out. It really didn’t do the trick.

cake batter

And then poured it into the pans. And baked it for 35 minutes. Cooled, yadda yadda yadda. I cut the cakes so that they were level and made the lemon filling—which was surprisingly thick and gelatinous. But delish. Totally reminded me of high school-cafeteria lemon fluff.

035039041Aside from the lemon filling, there wasn’t anything golden about my cake. It was supposed to be a yellow cake, but it was white. I thought that the butter frosting would have a golden-hue, but no. So I added food coloring to the frosting; but the end result was more circus-peanut than baby chick. And my sweetened coconut looked more like shredded cheddar.

Here’s my Golden Cake Deluxe with Golden Butter Frosting:

Golden Deluxe Cake
Seriously looks like a bag of Sargento shredded cheddar

My golden statuette-themed cake looked more like an ode to the Cheeseheads.

But how did it taste???

Golden Deluxe CakeNot bad. Not bad at all. And better than I thought considering the misstep I made with not mixing the sugar with the butter. The cake itself was much like an angel cake. What a surprise considering how viscous the cake batter was. And the frosting–although I think I should have added more powdered sugar to stiffen it up, it was tasty. And I already said how good that lemon fluff filling was.

This was a super-surprise—although none of the Oscar wins were. What was the closest one—Spike Jonez’s win for best original screenplay?

The other surprise? Monday snow day! YES. I know that a lot of people hate the snow, but I don’t mind it. And I love the fact that there is a propensity to cancel school in Maryland at the mere forecast of accumulation. Love it! As the Oscars went on, one by one we all received notifications that we didn’t have to go to work the next day. We were freaking out like little kids.

Oprah you get a car - You get a snow day! Everyone gets a snow day!

We even did our own Oscars selfie, which, sadly, did not get retweeted 2 million times:

Displaying IMG_1504_1.jpg
Of course I’m drinking straight from the bottle.

But totally close, right?

OK, not. Fucking pretty people. Kevin Spacey totally wins that picture, though.

So, if you had one, how did you spend your snow day? I spent my snow day napping, catching up on The Crazy Ones starring Robin Williams, Buffy, and BOB BENSON (seriously, can someone get me his number?) and I watched a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother (die already, show. I want to kick Ted Mosby in the teeth). I also got sucked into a block of season 1 Sex and the City, and I made a Tom Collins. Because I do love a good snow day cocktail. I will share that soon.

Anyway, happy anniversary to me.  This project continues to be such a blast. Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting and sharing. This has become so much more than I ever thought it would. It’s really turned into something that defines me as a person: I am the weird girl that always shows up at parties with a cheese ball or a Jell-O mold because she has a food blog.

There are worse things to be.

Cheers!

You’ll win one eventually, Leo. One day!

OH! I also want to thank my brother and his fiancee (again) for buying me the new camera. It has made SUCH a difference!

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18 thoughts on “Happy Anniversary, Dinner is Served!

  1. Hello Gorgeous, Happy Birthday!!! And here’s to many more! And love to Brian even though I am horribly allergic to all of his kind. xx

  2. Happy anniversary – I love dropping by. And I love Brian. I am fascinated by Yellow Cake, which I thought was some form of uranium until the internet brought the world of American cake classics to my Australian door.

  3. I would invite you to our dinner parties just for that reason. We try to have a party every once and a while that is just bad food from the past and there is always a jello mold and cheese ball or something of equal value. Please keep this up I so enjoy your post and love knowing someone loves old food as much as I do. And more pictures of Brian.

    1. I sometimes think that the only reason people read this darn thing is for the off chance that it is Brian-heavy. I promise more pictures of the cat!

  4. Happy Anniversary! I really love this blog, and I hope you keep it going for as long as possible.
    And also… hot dog bar? Effing brilliant. I feel like I might have to steal that idea at some point. Well, sort of. I will make all the hot dogs and then keep going back into the kitchen to make myself another one until I feel I’ve exhausted all possible hot dog combinations.

  5. Love yous hon! So glad we have been able to enjoy so many of the meals! Although I am a little upset we almost had a Fiestaware faux pas in the hot dog picture with two very similar color dishes so close together!!! Don’t tell my mother! I am still a novice Fiestaware owner.

  6. Congratulations, and I have two questions – 1. Where are those pinball machines in the picture with your BFFs? 2. What kind of camera did your rad bro/fiancee get you (all of my photos are terrible, and I need help)? Here’s to many more years of weird/good food blogging and Brian!

    1. 1. Mount Vernon Saloon, Baltimore MD
      2. It’s a Nikon. I think it’s the CoolPix S9600. I do not have the box here. Or the camera. There is an actual “food” setting which is great. It does great close-ups.

  7. Happy Three year anniversary. I want to thank you for doing this blog and also for making me smile, your humor is a gift and its great you share it with all of us.

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