This short film was shot entirely on a mobile phone.  So cool!

Oh, you thought that the birthday was over, did you?  Well, in the infamous words of "Mad Dog" Tannen, you thought wrong!

No, no.  We're talking about a guy whose birthday became infamously known as "birthday week" as a child.  So I guess now that he's 30, "extended birthday weekend" is a more reasonable way to celebrate.  There was a specific request for white cake with white frosting.  After doing some fairly extensive research, I found two things: 1) there were no white cake with white frosting recipes from any reliable sources and 2) I didn't feel like spending all day making up for the gaping hole in the white/white cake universe.  So I did what people don't normally admit to (particularly people who maintain baking blogs):  I use a box.  I've found that using a boxed cake and a small package of pudding mix is a good quick fix.  Less exciting for me, but a nice alternative when you just want a quick cake.  The cake, combined with a basic buttercream frosting (from a recipe that called for a whole 1/2 cup of milk!), made for a slightly dowdy, if not delicious cake.

So I'm sure you've all been waiting with baited breath to hear about birthday Extravaganza 2011!  Wait.  What's that?  You haven't been?  Oh, I didn't tell you about that?  Oh, sorry.

If you read a couple days ago about my baking disasters, then you know my brother's birthday had something to do with it.  Well.  This weekend was all about family celebrations:  one for my brother's 30th birthday and the other for my cousin's 11th birthday.  Two birthdays.  High stakes.  For today's party I got to be a spectator, but for brother's birthday yesterday, it was dessert central.  Now when you're a guy who doesn't really drink, dessert is important.  So, per his request I made cheesecake.  And since I got rave reviews for it back in February, I made some strawberry cupcakes. 

So here's how it all went down: