I made an ice cream cake!

(look at those layers of LOVE)

And you know what? It turned out great! All of this was in honor of Mr. Sinclair's decent into the life of a senior citizen and his absolute love of ice cream.

The whole process was easy, but incredibly time consuming. I followed this blog post written by an ex-Carvel cake maker but made some adjustments to make it my own. Here is how the process went:

• On Monday I bought ingredients. I decided I was going to make a strawberry cheesecake ice cream cake. I was going to use pie crust for the "crunchies" and Ben & Jerry's strawberry cheesecake ice cream, and my own home made ice cream. I also bought stuff to make the whip cream frosting from scratch.
• On Tuesday I made the trek over to Prospect Heights to pick up my friends ice cream maker. Any old shlep can use pre-made ice cream. Making it from scratch shows how much I really care, right?
• On Wednesday morning I made my first batch of ice cream. Vanilla. The whole process was really cool and only took about 20 minutes. When I get a full size apartment and have storage space, I am buying an ice cream maker. Then you have to put ice cream on the sides of a springform pan (about one inch thick) and let it freeze.
• On Wednesday night I put the strawberry cheesecake ice cream in the bottom and the pie crust on the top. FREEZE.
• On Thursday I put the rest of the ice cream on top of the pie crunchies and FREEZE.
• On Saturday I made the home made whip cream, and frosted my cake. FREEZE. This time to set the frosting.
• Later Saturday I decorated the cake and headed over to the birthday boys house.

All in all, it was a hit! It wasn't hard to make, but I still think I'll stick to a Carvel the next time (even if I do know how to make my own crunchies).

Hip Hip Hooray!

Yesterday I made waffles. Not just any waffles. I made rich, decadent sour cream waffles topped with rasberries and real maple syrup. An entire champagne bottle's worth of mimosas may have been consumed as well. All of this was in honor of my beautiful friend Katie. You see, Katie got a new fancy job and I wanted to celebrate. 8 waffles, 1 container of rasberries, a bottle of champagne, a few splashes of orange juice, and a Pretty Woman viewing later we were both very happy and full. Congrats again Katie, I'm so excited for you!

I was too excited to eat the waffles after I poured on the syrup, so here is the picture before.

Dillen was also there to help us celebrate. I was dog sitting for the day.

Birthday Cooking

Birthday girl is working hard drinking wine. Dewey really didn't like the Hello Kitty birthday hat, or the balloons.

Best couple shot of Blake and Lance. Jason's first New York Christmas tree!

It was a birthday party fit for a queen! Friday night a few of us got together for one of our cooking nights and to celebrate the beautiful Blake in all her birthday glory. When we usually get together we have to make these really terrible Whole Foods recipes for part of Blake's job. But, after many weeks of doing all we can to make those recipes edible, we decided to go a different route. Each of us submitted an ingredient and had to make a dish using one of the ingredients they did not submit.

This week's ingredients included avocado, crab boil, italian eggplant, fresh cranberries, goat cheese, and tomatillos. We ended up with such delicious creations! I used the avocado to make this delicious (and VEGAN) cake for the birthday girl. I do have to say that my favorite dish was the goat cheese and shrimp risotto. Way to go Lance. You really knocked that one out of the park. In terms of birthday celebrations, we had party hats, Hello Kitty plates and napkins, champagne, and of course a vegan birthday cake!

Can't wait for the next cooking adventure :)

Group shot before we ate. We all look tired because we were. Our dishes took a really long time to make and we didn't get to eat until about 10:30!

It's pumpkin time!

I can't believe it. Thanksgiving is just around the corner! I'm pretty excited about this year. My sister came up from her new diggs in DC to spend her first Thanksgiving away from home up in New York with me. It will be nice to spend the day with two of the people I love the most.

Last night I started prepping for the big day and made my pumpkin cheesecake. In the past this has proven to be quite a crowd pleaser. I cheated a little bit this time and made a 9.5 inch cheesecake (instead of the recommended 10) so I could make 2 mini cheesecakes for sister and I to try before hand. Jessie (who has proven to be weary of all things pumpkin in the past) even thought they were great!

Can't wait for Thursday!

Oh, and speaking of pumpkin... how freaking adorable is this card? Extra points because it's made in Brooklyn!

Baking up a storm

milk & cookies are the perfect afternoon snack.

Today I got myself in even more of a Fall mood. I took out my minimal decorations (a pumpkin and an unfilled cornucopia) and baked some delicious Fall treats. I made these awesome pumpkin cookies. They are seriously good. I think I've already eaten 8. I finally invested in an electric mixer so I don't have to mix everything by hand. It is ridiculous how much easier baking is with electronics. I see a lot of cookies in my future, and in my coworkers (a girl can't eat them all by herself!).

A few weeks back I made this vegan avocado chocolate cake. It looks gross (It's kind of Halloween-esque?) but it was delicious! Please note that I didn't have a mixer for the frosting yet. The cake was probably one of the moistest, chocolatey cakes I've had. I would of preferred a cream cheese frosting though. Takes away the veganess of it, but I only made it because it sounded good.