Birthday Weekend

Because Jeff's 39th birthday falls on a Monday (the 5th) this year, we decided to celebrate a day early (don't tell any Germans!). Actually we began his birthday weekend on Friday afternoon when we went to the Mama's and Papa's baby store - how else would he want to spend a free Friday evening?! - outside Birmingham, then went to the Frankfurter Christmas market in the Birmingham town center, which is supposedly the largest Christmas market outside of Germany, or at least in the UK.

Upon arrival we made a beeline to the pretzel stall and bought a Butterbrezen (butter pretzel) to share.

Then we followed our noses to the next stall that was grilling up red and white bratwursts.

Berliners, or Krapfen... thinking of my Mom and Norm! (We didn't have one, though).

We continued down the long row of stalls until we decided it was too cold, and we needed to warm up. We went into the Bullring shopping mall, had a nosy around the ground floor of Selfridges and were amazed at the long queue at the Krispy Kreme counter in the store - remember this was in the evening! We sat at a cafe inside the mall and had a latte (Jeff), hot chocolate (me) and shared a slice of chocolate cake. Get this... the cake was so rich, even between us, we left a couple bites of cake on the plate!... gasp! We ventured out in the cold and crowds again for a while longer then headed home. It was so nice to experience a Christmas market again, albeit slightly different than in Germany, and spend a Friday evening together.

Jeff requested French toast, sausage and bacon for breakfast. Notice the tank-shaped card on the table? I bought him this earlier in the year, since he works with tanks on a daily basis. Little did I know that the tank on the card is one of the same tanks that his team is working on! Then he goes on to quiz me on which variant it is. A Samaritan? No, too small. A Samson? No, too small again. A Sultan? Nope, haven't heard of that one. A Spartan? Could be. A Scimitar? Yep, that's it! See...I listen! The card continued to distract him through breakfast as he was picking out the errors of the tank's design on the card... at least the artist's name is also on the card so he can contact him to inform him of this.

Today after church, we went to the Loch Fyne (website) seafood restaurant in Shrewsbury for lunch, where, disappointingly, they didn't have the lobster bisque I so wanted to have. However, our meals were really good and are looking forward to going there another time.

I finally got up the courage to try a cake recipe that I found over 3 years ago in a Redbook magazine and have been meaning to bake for Jeff's birthday cake since. I was (still am) daunted by the whole caramelizing the sugar process, since I know it can be sticky and tricky to get the temperature right. The chocolate cake was quite easy to make and turned out moist and very chocolatey. The icing also turned out very tasty (thank goodness), but it the most difficult icing I've ever made (but that's not saying much, since I haven't made too many icing recipes). The icing cooled too much while it was whipping in the mixer, but it did loosen up when I added a bit of boiling water to it before spreading it on the cake - but again cooled and thickened quickly, which is why it's not too beautifully iced in the picture. Nevertheless Jeff was very pleased with his birthday cake and all of the hard work put into making the caramel icing paid off.

Old-Fashioned Cocoa Cake with Caramel Icing
Source: Trisha Yearwood's "Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen" cookbook, Redbook Magazine, September 2008.

Ingredients
2 C. all-purpose flour
2/3 C. cocoa
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2/3 C. (1 1/3 sticks) butter
1 2/3 C. sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/3 C. water

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and lightly flour 2x 9-in. cake pans. (I always cut out non-stick parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pans, lightly oil the bottom of the pans, then fit the round papers into the bottom of the pans.)
2. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, and salt and set aside. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Add flour mixture alternately with water, beginning and ending with flour.
3. Divide batter evenly between pans and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Turn layers out onto cooling racks (you may want to spray the racks with cooking spray first.)

Caramel Icing Ingredients
4 C. sugar
1 C. milk
1 stick (1/2 C.) butter
1/8 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla

1. Mix 3 C. of the sugar and milk in a heavy 3-quart saucepan. Slowly bring to a boil and keep hot. Caramelize the remaining 1 cup sugar in an iron or heavy-duty enamel) skillet by cooking over medium heat and stirring and scraping the pan with a flat-edged spatula as the sugar melts. Cook until the syrup turns to medium or dark brown in color (this occurs at about 320 F to 350 F on a candy thermometer). Do not scorch syrup. Stream syrup (add VERY slowly) into boiling sugar and milk mixture and cook to the soft-ball stage (when the syrup forms a ball when dropped into cool water but is still soft), about 238 F. Add butter, baking soda, and vanilla.
2. Pour hot mixture into the metal bowl of an electric mixer and beat as it cools, until the icing is creamy, 15 to 20 minutes. Spread on cake layers while icing is still warm. If it becomes too stiff, add a few drops of hot water. Serves 12.