I began preparations the Sunday before by making raspberry marshmallows. I used the recipe from the Sugar Baby: Confections, Candies, Cakes & Other Delicious Recipes for Cooking with Sugar cookbook which was written by Sandra Bullock’s sister, Gesine Bullock-Prado.  I did not use the egg whites because I knew children and pregnant women may be eating them so they were a little dense but otherwise delicious.  I also managed to make quite a mess (notice the marshmallow hanging from the stove hood).

Friday the real prep began, cake baking!  I made a 2 layer 8 inch chocolate cake and banana cupcakes.  I purchased classy looking cupcake liners from Amazon which I think looked nice but the grease from the cupcakes sort of soaked through.  I don’t think anybody noticed.

For the cake I had a vision of white vanilla frosting with brown writing.  I do not have a brown food coloring and my past attempts at making one by combining all the other colors was a complete fail (grey frosting is not attractive).  Chocolate is the obvious answer for a brown frosting which led me to envision a 4 layer chocolate cake with a ganache in the middle and the white frosting filling the other 2 layers.  Somewhere along the line I decided vanilla frosting was a little boring and since I had some Trader Joe’s Salted Caramel I decided to add that to the frosting for a special added touch.  The salted caramel was definitely a good decision and adding already made caramel made it really easy (and now I have extra to add to my ice cream).

Decorating the cake was the next obstacle.  I do not claim to know how to decorate cakes although I would love to take a class one day.  I have some of the materials but not all so I had pretty low expectations.  I also started to run out of frosting towards the end.  It turns out a pound of butter does not go as far as you think it would!

At this point I ran into a couple problems in addition to running out of frosting.  The party was set to start at 3pm and I was trying to get dressed, eat something besides frosting, set up the dessert table, get Camille ready and finish decorating the cake in the 10 minutes before 3.  Hmm, a bit of bad planning on my part.  Oh! And I had bought a really cool Happy Birthday sign from the paper store and I finally opened it and realized it needed to be assembled.  Arg.  So Frenchie and our friend Tina ran out for a glue stick and some sandwiches.

Needless to say we never assembled that.  Nor did we eat those sandwiches.  Next birthday!

Well, because of all those last minute things I decided not to write on the cake at all and instead drizzle it with caramel sauce and call it done.  I also thought it was a nice way to demonstrate at least one of the flavors of the cake.

Unfortunately I did not get a separate picture of the finished cake or the cupcakes but here is the cake, cupcakes and marshmallows.

And the birthday girl blowing out her candles.

Here are the recipes, for those interested.

• 2 8 inch layers of Chocolate Cake Recipe from Sweetapolita (substituted decaf coffee), each split into 2 for 4 total layers
• 1 Vanilla bean whipped cream cream cheese frosting
• 1 Salted caramel swiss meringue buttercream (I made the swiss meringue buttercream and then added about a 1/3 cup of Trader Joe’s Salted Caramel sauce)
• 1/2 recipe Chocolate ganache – from The Cake Bible 
• 13 banana cupcakes = 1/2 recipe from Martha Stewart in cupcake molds

Camille Walking with Wagon

I was not planning on having a real party because 1 year olds do not really need a party.  In fact, my plan had been to throw Frenchie and me a party where we did not have to cook, clean or keep track of another human being for a couple hours to celebrate the fact that we survived the first year.  Then I started thinking about pictures, memories, cake, dessert tables and friends and decided to go for a little party.  Growing up I did not really have big elaborate birthday parties.  Since we lived close to family most years we only had family parties which is what I would also like to do with Camille.  This year it will be our Boston “family” which includes a few close friends.

Of course all I care about is dessert and I have some elaborate plans which will hopefully all work out.  I plan to document the steps here so keep checking back for more!

Here is my yearly recap of 2011.  It was quite a year.  Copy and paste into your own blog.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Had a baby.  Do I need to do more than that?  It seems like enough.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

My New Years resolution every year is to not google medical symptoms.  I did keep that resolution but I may now need to make a resolution to not google my child’s symptoms.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Me.  Sarah gave birth to the beautiful Cameron.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, thank goodness.

5. What countries did you visit?

None…but 2012 will have a good answer!

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

An Oregon address.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

March 20, 2011.  The day Camille was born.  Also, March 19, 2011, the day I actually went into the hospital.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

This one is hard.  I guess having a baby is a big achievement but it feels very ordinary when you think about all the babies out there.  Instead maybe I should say that my biggest achievement was surviving severe sleep deprivation for 9 months and not killing anybody.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Work stuff that I would not like to go into in public…

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

NO!

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My awesome stroller.  I have used it almost every day since Camille was born.  It was seriously expensive but worth every penny.

12. Where did most of your money go?

Rent and student loans.  Boo.

13. What did you get really excited about?

Babies!  And girls nights out away from the baby.  Camille meeting her relatives.

14. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Adele’s entire album.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:

– happier or sadder? Happier, for sure.
– thinner or fatter? Much thinner!  Thanks to delivering a baby.
– richer or poorer? Poorer, because babies are expensive.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Taking care of myself by eating well and exercising.  Oh, and SLEEPING!

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worrying about being the perfect mom.

18. How did you spend Christmas?

In Portland, with family, eating and playing.  It was awesome!

19. What was your favorite TV program?

Dexter, Homeland, Breaking Bad, True Blood.

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

I really enjoyed The Language of Flowers and The Hunger Games series.

21. What was your favorite music from this year?

I did not really get into music this year but I did sing a lot of Ray Lamontagne and Adele to Camille.  I also fell in love with James Blake’s version of A Case of You.

22. What were your favorite films of the year?

Um, there were films this year?  I saw two movies, 50/50 and The Descendants.  Both were pretty good but not favorites.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Celebrated at home with a few friends.  Camille was 2 weeks old so the excitement of my night was having sushi and a glass of champagne.  I turned 30.  I would like to have a giant 31st birthday to make up for a slightly lame 30th.

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Being closer to family.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Whatever is on the top of the pile.

26. What kept you sane?

Frenchie.   Family.  New mom friends.

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

Do it now or else it will never get done.

A little morbid, yes, but good!

Another pretty good book was A Good Hard Look by Ann Napolitano which is a fictional account of Flannery O’Connor’s life and stories about her hometown.  Not life changing, but a good read.

Now for babies!  Camille is eating solid foods as fast as I can make them (which is not very fast).  So far she has had apples, pears, peas, sweet potatoes, squash, banana, broccoli and avocado.  She has liked everything except avocado but I think it was kind of a gross avocado so I can’t blame her.

This picture is totally weird but funny.  Actually, she kind of looks like me in this picture!

I don’t bathe Camille as much as I should.

I don’t use my gym membership.

I don’t read the news (but I try to listen to NPR in the mornings)

I don’t dust more than 3 times a year.

I don’t always turn off the TV when Camille is in the room.

I don’t iron.

I don’t eat a healthy breakfast (I eat toast with butter and jam almost every day!)

Of course there are things that I would like to change about my life but for now this is the best I can do!

Camille’s 5 month birthday was yesterday which meant two things.  First, it might finally be time to start reading the news again (who is Michele Bachmann and why do I care?), and second, I needed to come up with the 5 month baked good.   Since it is peach season here in the Northeast I wanted to make something with peaches that wasn’t too heavy.  I considered making a peach pie and molding the top crust into the shape of a 5 and then I pictured the scene when that went horribly wrong.  It involved peach pie being thrown out of our window, or maybe in Frenchie’s face, depending on my mood.  So I tried to simplify my idea which is something I have been doing more of lately and started looking for a peaches and cream cake.  I thought that seemed like a pretty obvious idea but it turns out not to be so popular.  At least not what I was picturing.  I found coffee cakes and non-frosting cakes.  I was picturing something like a tres leches cake but with peaches.  I didn’t have the right ingredients fo ra tres leches cake so I decided to go for a fluffy vanilla cake with a whipped cream frosting and peaches.

I ran into a couple of issues here.  First, I needed to pick a vanilla cake recipe.  My go-to white cake recipe is the White Butter Cake, but it is a little more dense than I was picturing.  I remembered a vanilla cake recipe from Sweetopolita and decided to go with that even though I was nervous about all the eggs.  Sometimes when cakes call for a lot of eggs they end up tasting very eggy.  I know, big surprise.  But the method was so weird I decided to give it a shot.  I mean, these cakes are all about having fun and experimenting while watching Camille grow up so I might as well take a chance, right??

This cake only uses egg whites but you do not whip them and fold them in as expected.  You just add them into the other ingredients in 3 batches and mix after each addition.  When I was pouring it into the pan I thought the batter looked a lot like box cake batter.  Later I actually read Sweetopolita’s post and realized that was what she was looking for.  The cake came out very light and fluffy.  I thought it worked really well for a light summer cake and it would go well with any fruit or berry.

I went with my favorite frosting, whipped cream cream cheese frosting but stupidly I thought I would try a different method at first.  I tried to just cream the cream cheese and sugar and then add in the whipped cream.  That resulted in a very runny frosting.  I then tried to fix it and made it SO much worse and had to dump it.  Unfortunately I was then out of all the ingredients and had to make a sweaty dash to the store (Boston had like 1000% humidity today).  I finally made the frosting the right way by whipping the cream cheese and sugar together, separately whipping the cream and then folding them together, and all was well.  I added the peaches in the shape of a 5 and we were ready to go (except that it kind of looked like an S).

Oh wait, I forgot the peach issue.  I forgot to buy farmer’s market peaches during the week so I asked Frenchie to pick some up from Stop and Shop.  Well, he found some lovely peaches but they were hard as a ROCK!  Since the only Sunday farmer’s market was too inconvenient to go to today I was stuck.  I ended up poaching the peaches so they were soft and slightly sweet but definitely not as good as peaches that actually ripened on the tree.

In the end it turned out pretty well, until Camille decided to stick her foot in the cake!  Silly baby!

Our vacation to Oregon was wonderful.  She did not seem bothered by the time change at all and she slept great after all the daily stimulation and new people.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the strawberries were delicious.  Camille got to meet her cousin and it was love at first sight.

It was also really fun to spend time with Margot, my niece, who turned 6 while we were there!

Camille also took her first hike.  We borrowed a friend’s jogging stroller which had great suspension and got us through some rough trail.  Well, it wasn’t really rough trail, just a little rough for a stroller.

We took a red eye back to Boston, which was rough for Frenchie and I but fine for Camille since she just slept the whole way, and found our new home in total disarray.  We have slowly made our way through all the boxes except for Camille’s stuff.  Frenchie says her room looks like a squash court because it is so empty.  I need to decide what sort of book/toy storage I want and we still need to buy a crib.  Unfortunately that requires decision making ability and money, neither of which we have.  Luckily I suppose Camille does not really know the difference.

I have also been distracted from organizing the new house with an almost crippling anxiety about going back to work in August and sending Camille to daycare.  After a couple days of agonizing, I finally made the decision that I need to at least start off working part-time and see how that goes.  So far my supervisor has been very supportive.  Unfortunately, the daycare we had lined up does not do part time so I also have to find a new childcare solution!  In the next 2 weeks.  I guess I should have made this decision sooner but I was in total denial that August was actually going to arrive.   Yet it is looming in my 15 day Accuweather forecast and I can no longer sleep.  I am sad and jealous that Camille will be spending her days with somebody besides me, I am worried she is going to get sick, I am worried that I won’t remember how to do my job, and I really do not want to wear real shoes again.  More complains, complains.

Luckily I have this precious baby smile to remind me that life is, in fact, really good.

Camille’s 4 month birthday snuck up on me so I decided at the last minute to make a lemon meringue pie because we had a lot of lemons.  It turns out lemon meringue pie and high humidity do not mix (duh) so it turned out pretty awful.  Still, here are the pictures of a very tired 4 month old and her pie.

We are moving on Saturday.  We are flying to Oregon on Sunday.  With a 3 month old.  For the first time.  I have heard that flying with infants is not that bad so I am trying not to be anxious…but I am.  While I am really really excited about moving into the new apartment I am anxious about moving day.  We have a few friends to help but I feel guilty because we are too old to have friends help us move.  So I am trying to make it is easy and have things ready to go but it is hard because our apartment is so cramped there is nowhere to put the boxes.  Also, Frenchie brought boxes home but only like 12.  Maybe he doesn’t realize how much crap we have?  AND, that baby likes attention and is not happy when I spend my time filling boxes instead of making her hippo talk, or feeding her ALL THE TIME!

Also, allergies, moving, and not being able to take allergy medicine do not go together.

Oh, and did I mention we have a lot of crap.  I have 3 tall kitchen bags full of shoes and I only ever wear flip flops.

Complains Complains

ps.  In case you think I am too negative I will say that I am very happy that it is not hot this week!

This guy cracks her up!  She is starting to sit in her Bumbo seat and people are still saying that she has an incredibly strong neck.  I have no idea how or why she is so strong but it works for her.  She has also managed to turn some pages of her books and she rolls over from her stomach to back!  She still hates tummy time though…

For 3 months we had chocolate cake with my cream cheese whipped cream frosting.  I got the cake recipe from the Flour cookbook’s chocolate cupcakes.  It was good, but I still like Smitten Kitchen’s double chocolate cake recipe better.  But nothing was as good as making her smile in her Bumbo seat.

Okay, now for the more complex recipe.  I have had a can of dulce de leche sauce in my pantry for a long time now and I kept waiting for inspiration.  I finally found it when I imagined my brown bananas with caramel sauce.

I wanted to make something for Frenchie’s sister’s visit so I thought these would be great because muffins are not a common French food.  She one-upped me by bringing these.

Well I can’t compete with that!  We had a great visit and I think Camille officially loves her French aunt.

Luckily she still politely ate my muffins while I drooled over the macarons.   Here they are.

Banana – Walnut Muffins

adapted slightly from Simply Recipes

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups of flour
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (toasted or raw

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 F.  Mix bananas and sugar in a large mixing bowl or mixer bowl.
• Mix in the sugar, egg and vanilla
• Sprinkle baking soda and salt over the mixture
• Add the flour, mix until it is just incorporated.  Mix in the walnuts
• Pour mixture into a prepared muffin tin.  Bake for 25-30 minutes.  Check for doneness with a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin.  It if comes out clean, they are done.  Cool completely before frosting.

Dulce de leche Frosting

• 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 cup dulce de leche sauce*
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (or to taste)
• pinch of salt

Using a mixer combine all ingredients until smooth.  Adjust vanilla and salt as desired.  The frosting is not overly sweet which I think works well with muffins.  If I was making a frosting for a cupcake I would add some powdered sugar.

*You can find dulce de leche sauce in the mexican food section of your grocery store.  You can also make it yourself with many recipes found on the internet.