My baby is 5! Happy Birthday, Leighton!

Leighton turned 5 on Tuesday!

And even though we had done the cake and party on Sunday, we were far from finished celebrating this occasion!  We needed cupcakes for his class, a cake for our family at home in the evening, a special treat to start the morning off, and a pile of presents wrapped.  NO problem!

I knew I wanted to make some teal/orange/white cupcakes for Leighton's class.  And cupcakes are easy.  And I wasn't planning any difficult decorating or anything.  So, a late start after the debate wouldn't a problem.  Or so I thought.  I used the same cake recipe as I used for the party, but as cupcakes they just didn't stop rising and we ended up with 12 giant, messy looking cupcakes from the first half of the batter and 10 pretty little cupcakes from the second half (see, I learned from my mistakes and made adjustments for those ones!).  It wasn't looking pretty and we didn't have enough.  I called it a night - gave the uglies to my parents and Roy to start eating - and prepared to make the cupcakes in the morning instead.  I did use a couple to make a wee cupcake for Leighton to wake up to in the morning (his sister got the pancakes with sprinkles, so I had to be fair!).  This is what he woke up to on the table:

 

After he was off to school, I set out to get the cupcakes done for his class.  It was quick and easy and all I had to do was decide how to decorate them.  I looked at this picture of some piping tips but realized I didn't have the tip I wanted to try out.  So, I just did them like this quickly:

While the oven was on and the cupcakes were cooling, I got the next cake ready.  I know ... another cake?!?!  You would not believe the amount of butter, sugar, powdered sugar, and eggs that I went through in a few short days!

I had decided we'd had enough white and yellow cakes lately, so it was chocolate's turn.  I always love how moist the Perfectly Chocolate Cake recipe from the canister of Hershey's unsweetened cocoa turns out, so that's what I used.  There are all sorts of recipes out there for chocolate cakes and many use coffee to enhance the flavor of the chocolate.  But I haven't tried any of those ones yet.  Maybe next time!  Because you know what, the point of THIS cake wasn't even the cake.  It was the icing (originally I had planned to use the swiss meringue buttercream as the base but I was far too short on time, so I just used regular buttercream instead).  I was making this recipe for mint chocolate chip cake.  Yes, you read that right.  Mint chocolate chip CAKE, people!  If you are anything like us, we love ice cream (I know you already know that!) and we love chocolate chip mint, so the thought of making a cake that tasted like that had me salivating as soon as I saw it on Pinterest.  And I knew that Leighton would be beyond thrilled to have that presented to him.  There were two special ingredients that made this cake shine (the original recipe doesn't call for mint chocolate chips, but I couldn't NOT use these babies!):

I had planned this for a while and was happy after all the other cake making and decorating that there was no special decorating required for this one.  It was all about the taste.  There is the ganache on the top.  And mine was far too thick so it didn't drizzle nicely.  Instead it kind of fell over the edges and blobbed down the sides.  Buy you know what?  I was beyond caring about cake appearances at this point.  And Leighton didn't notice or care.  As I said, this cake was NOT about looking pretty.  It was ALL about the taste.  And it was soooooo good.  You really have to make this.  Now.

Before we got to the actual eating of the cake, however, we needed to bring the birthday boy home from school (with some little gifts from his teachers!).

And then it was time to open his gifts from us and Grandma & Papa.  And, once again, we were lucky that Riley had a belated birthday gift to open (I didn't even know it was in the house!  Sorry, Douniazed!  It was delivered from amazon and I assumed it was one of the items my Mom had gotten delivered here!).  Leighton got a good mix of things he has been asking for (basketball, Disney princess books, Ariel TAG book, bigger space jamjams) and things that he hadn't thought to ask for but now can't live without (soccer net, dinosaur jamjams, more reels for his viewmaster and a case to hold them all)!

 After playing with gifts, it was time for dinner.  Leighton requested pup and meat (yummy Zambian food that he absolutely adores), so Daddy took the lead on dinner and I just made the vegetable sides (tomato and onion gravy and peanut cabbage).

And, finally.  It.  was.  time.  for.  cake.

Happy 5th Birthday, Leighton!!!