Happy Half Birthday, Mister Man!

Quick reminder of three giveaways here, here, and here.

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Today is Mister Man's half birthday. Yes, we celebrate half birthdays around here. It's a fun tradition, and the wee ones get a kick out of it.

Apparently a tradition has been set. Mister Man's dinner request yet again this year was French Toast. Keep in mind that I don't eat French Toast. I don't like French Toast. I've never liked it. Ever.

Silly me, I introduced it one night when I was running low on dinner ideas and had a loaf of bread that had sat around one day too long for me to truly enjoy it. I mixed a few things together, and apparently I'm a French Toast master - odd since it's a food I don't like, but apparently the nutmeg and orange zest (among other things) I add works.

Nonetheless, making French Toast is a super easy option. It's a throw dinner together in ten minutes option. Gotta love that. The only bummer is that I then have to make dinner for myself separate. Ironic that I won't make a different dinner for the wee ones when they don't like something, isn't it?

Mister Man then made me really get out my creative hat for his cupcakes though. He requested strawberry cupcakes with cherry frosting.

Yep.

And I'm the kind of mommy who says that they can have whatever flavor they want, and I mean it. I have done a strawberry cake before, but I really hate using mixes and other processed things with all sorts of chemicals in them. This time around, I found a way to make it strawberry and yummy and actually pretty darn good. It's good enough that it's making it to Tasty Tuesday this week.

The cherry frosting was more difficult. My husband suggested I go look at Betty Crocker, but I really prefer the homemade stuff for the wee ones, especially for their birthdays. I guessed and played around and ... I ended up with cherry soup. Which then cooled into a wonderful almost glaze-like topping. It was perfect for the cupcakes, and Mister Man was thrilled.

Granted, I wouldn't put those two flavor combinations together myself, but strawberry cake with a cream cheese frosting perhaps? Or my baked fudge frosting? That I could do. And the cherry icing? Ohhh that would be scrumptious on my normal white or yellow cake.

That's why I went back a half hour ago to have a second cupcake, right? Shhh!

BUT.

Today is really about Mister Man. He's fully six and a half now, and I'm happy to report that I don't have problems with him getting older this time. He's already talking about his seventh birthday and what he's going to do for that.

In the meantime, enjoy being six and a half, Mister Man!

Even though I didn't make the cupcakes dairy free, Little Miss was not to be left out. I made her a cake awhile ago and put it in the freezer, so all I have to do is cut off a hunk anytime we have a celebration, and she's happy.

Tasty Tuesday!

Go check out my giveaway here and then come on back for the yummy recipe. Mmmm, soup!

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Today is Little Miss's half-birthday, so I knew that would have to play into the recipe I chose for this week.

And let me stop there, since I've recently learned that I need to explain a half birthday. In our family, we don't just celebrate our birthdays each year, we also celebrate the half birthday six months into the year. On birthdays, people get a cake, but for half birthdays, cupcakes are served. There are no presents, but the half-birthday person still gets to choose what we have for dinner.

When the wee ones woke up this morning, Mister Man was so excited to wish Little Miss a happy half-birthday. He rushed into her room and gave her a big hug and a kiss. Then he ran back into his room exclaiming, "A plan! I need to come up with a plan quickly!" He re-emerged carrying one of his treasured Atlantis Legos. What a sweetie.

It didn't end there. He dashed back into his room and came back shortly upset because "I can't find it!" I assumed he was looking for a uniform shirt, but no - he wanted to give Little Miss his Thomas birthday shirt to wear today. I quickly found it, and she proudly went through the day wearing Mister Man's shirt.

Back to cooking though -- since Little Miss chose my pizza for her dinner tonight, there went that idea. Instead, I am "stuck" with her eensy weensy cupcakes.

I bought an itty bitty baking kit baking kit from the book fair this fall that Little Miss received for Christmas. She was so excited to use it for the first time. It actually worked out well because making a cake usually means having lots of leftovers. I found a recipe that makes not too many small cupcakes, which was perfect. I adapted it to (in my mind) improve it, but I love the ability to make a treat like this without having a kajillion leftovers.

Tiny - and not too many - Cupcakes

Cupcakes
Ingredients:
1/2 c sugar
2/3 c flour
1/4 c unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1 t baking powder
1/4 c milk
1 1/4 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted

Directions:
In a medium bowl, beat together the sugar and butter until fluffy. Beat in the egg then stir in the chocolate. Once incorporated, add the vanilla and beat again.

Add the baking powder and mix, then add the flour and stir until just mixed. Stir in the milk until the batter is smooth, but do not overstir.

Use mini muffin tins, and spray with a nonstick spray. Spoon in a dollop of batter into each muffin space, filling about three-quarters full. This made 24 cupcakes and the 6 itty bitty cupcakes perfectly! Tap the muffin tin on the counter to get out any air bubbles.

(And, yes, these cupcakes really are that little - that's a teaspoon measure sitting next to the cupcake pan for relative size comparison.)

Place into a preheated 350 oven, and bake for 10 minutes. Let cool for ten minutes, then gently twist each cupcake and turn the pan upside down to release.

Icing
Ingredients:
1/3 c butter, room temperature
1/8 c milk
1/3 c cocoa
2 c powdered sugar
1/2 t vanilla

Directions:
Carefully mix together the milk and butter. Add the cocoa and stir until combined. Add the vanilla and mix again. Add powdered sugar a half cup at a time until the frosting is at the consistency that you prefer.

Turn the cupcakes upside down and twist in the frosting to coat gently, then use a butter knife to add more frosting and spread it around.

Because these are so small, they will dry out quickly. Store in an airtight container, but eat them quickly!

It's Another Half Birthday!

We celebrate half birthdays around here. My mom always celebrated ours when we were kids, and I've continued the tradition. My husband thinks I'm nuts and that I'm making up half birthdays, but that's ok -- we don't have to celebrate his! I remember taking cupcakes to school on my half birthday and other kids doing the same, so someone else must know about this.

For us, the rules of the half birthday are that there are no presents (and my parents broke that one this year, of course), but that the half birthday child gets to choose what we eat for dinner and what kind of cupcakes he or she wants. Yep, cupcakes. Cakes are for birthdays, and cupcakes are for half birthdays. It's our thing.

Today is Little Miss's half birthday. I can't believe she's three and a half already! And sometimes it feels like three and a half going on fifteen and a half.



For dinner, she insisted on her non-dairy cheese pizza. I found vegan cheese recently at the natural foods store, having discovered that soy cheese actually contains milk proteins (umm, hello people!). It's not exactly cheap, but I make homemade pizzas -- crust and sauce included -- for my family at least once a month. Poor Little Miss missed her pizza.

I tried to convince her that I should make something else -- pancakes, homemade chicken tenders, French toast, crock pot pork. Nope. I had made the pizza on Thursday night, and there was NO way I was going to talk her out of having her special pizza again. So pizza it was again.



I made three pizzas. There were six of us. I had one piece. Yep, one single solitary lonely piece. The wee ones each ate over three quarters of a pizza themselves. You'd think I hadn't fed them in a week. Nope, it must be that I'm such a good cook (ha!). Fortunately, I'm able to scrounge for myself fairly well.



I also found a recipe for dairy free banana cupcakes and managed to talk Little Miss into wanting banana cupcakes for her birthday (sucker!). I was a little worried about how they'd turn out, so I tossed in some cinnamon "just in case." They actually turned out pretty well. Mister Man ate three small ones, my dad and husband each ate two and a half of the big ones, and I enjoyed my cupcake, as well.



Little Miss licked the frosting off her cupcake, nibbled once at the top of her cupcake and announced that she didn't like it. Great. These were the cupcakes I had baked that I was planning to freeze so she could have some cake to take to birthday parties instead of having to skip out on the treats there. At least I got a test run in. I guess someone will just have to eat these cupcakes. And I'll have to do more baking. I hate it when that happens....

And yes, my parents totally ignored the no presents rule. Remember that dollhouse we finally opened up on Thursday? Well, it now has a "functioning" kitchen with all the appropriate appliances. That make noises. Wheeee! There would have been more, but the kitchen was the only piece from the set that Toys 'R Us had when my mom went there. Bummer!



Do you like the decorations we used for the cupcakes? They're from the Superheroes Matching Game that Mister Man got for Christmas. The wee ones absolutely love playing the game and even better is playing superheroes with the figures. Gotta love the games that have multiple uses, right? Little Miss was insistent that she wanted Spiderman on her cupcakes to decorate them, and I had the brilliant idea to use these guys. She was thrilled. Phew!

What other family traditions do you have? Do you celebrate half birthdays or anything like them?



PS I finally got the pics to upload. Yay!

Happy Half Birthday, Mister Man!

Ok, so his half birthday was April 11. And today's the 23rd. I am notoriously horrible at getting pictures from my camera to this computer, and this definitely needs pictures. So, yes, this is over a week late.

Most people and families celebrate birthdays – with the exception of my husband’s family, but I won’t get into that today. In my family, we always celebrated half birthdays, too, and it’s a tradition that lives on today.

For the half birthday, there are certain rules we follow. First, the half birthday child (my husband refuses to acknowledge half birthdays for me and isn’t into it for himself either) gets to choose whatever he or she wants to eat for dinner. Second, there are cupcakes to celebrate. For “real” birthdays, we do full cakes, but half birthdays get cupcakes – also of the birthday child’s choosing. Lastly, the child must blow out candles, including a smaller candle to represent the half year.

This year, Mister Man decided that he wanted to have sausage for dinner. When I suggested he might want something else, he decided to add sausage, too. I kindly suggested maybe something not in the meat family. And he came up with French toast. This is exactly what he had for his real birthday back in October, so apparently creativity in food choices is a skill that develops a bit later in life!

He then had to choose his cupcake. At first he wanted chocolate cherry – not a big surprise since Daddy’s favorite cake is the cherry chip that came from a box that his mom made a couple times for him growing up. I love to bake, and my cakes never come from a box, so I reinvented cherry chip to my own liking a few years ago. Mister Man has chosen that for his birthday cake and cupcakes every year since Daddy introduced him to it. Then he changed his mind and wanted a chocolate cupcake with cherries in it. Ok, I can do that, too. Then he finally settled on just chocolate cupcakes. Okie-dokie!

Me, being the sweet and giving mom that I am, did not try to talk him into a different dinner or cupcake. Ok, I did, but I failed. I don’t think I’m the most picky eater, but for whatever reason, I don’t like French toast, sausage or chocolate cakes (except for my molten chocolate cakes, but those are in a separate category). Since he had made his choice, I simply got to eat a different dinner and skip dessert. Fortunately, even when I don’t like certain foods, I can still cook them well – or so my family tells me.

Once Mister Man was on the bus, Little Miss and I set to work making the cupcakes. Not surprisingly, she wanted to help me make them. It’s actually sort of fun to watch her excitement as she pulls the stool around the island to wherever she thinks she’ll have the best vantage point. She helped me put in all the ingredients, and of course we had to smell most of them. Trying to explain to a two year old why flour doesn’t smell like flowers was probably the most difficult part of the baking process.

As I started to put the cupcakes into their molds, Little Miss watched intently. She saw how I dipped a 1/3 cup measure into the batter and carefully dripped it into the cup. As I was concentrating on this, she – unbeknownst to me – picked up her own cup measure and dipped it into the batter. She, being the girl she is, chose the 1 cup measure. However, she had no interest in filling the cupcake molds. As I looked up, I saw her drinking the batter from the cup.

Me: Stop! Freeze! What are you doing? (giggle, giggle, snicker)
Little Miss: Mommy, I’m eating.
Me: I can see that. Do not put that back into the bowl, do you understand?
Little Miss: Yes, Mommy. This is yummy. Do you want some? (As she holds it out for me)
Me: I’m good thanks. No more dipping though.


I finished filling the cups and placed them in the oven. The fun now begins – the bowl has to be cleaned, as do the beaters. I told her she couldn’t dip anymore, you notice, I didn’t tell her that she couldn’t have any more of the batter. She licked off the spatula and one beater. As I removed the first beater, Little Miss asked if she could save the other beater for Mister Man. Awwww… And yes, he did get the beater when he got off the bus. I had to talk her into not carrying it outside for him, but she finally acquiesced.

Before we got to that point, of course. There was a bit of a mess on Little Miss' face to clean up. Fortunately, she knows how to do that, too. And nope, I can't help.

I did have a few issues once the cupcakes were finished baking, however. When I bake, I bake for flavor not presentation. Somewhere down the road, my goal is to take classes to learn to decorate cakes, etc but for now I tend to leave the cakes in the pan and frost from there or do minimal decorating (especially after my 4 layer disaster 5 years ago for my husband’s birthday at the ball field). For these cupcakes, I debated what to do.

I finally decided that powdered sugar was the way to go. I’m better off not hiding it and going with the flow – I called them my see-saw cupcakes.

For dinner, my parents joined us, of course. What’s a half birthday celebration without family, after all? For the French toast, I experimented with adding orange zest this time, and fortunately it went over well with all involved. I can’t attest to its flavor, but all the pieces were eaten.

And fortunately, no comments were made on the cupcakes’ appearance, but that may be because everyone’s mouths were full.



My baby is 4 ½. *sigh*