Tania's Birthday Cake

Hello all! Wow...2 entries in January? That's so unlike me!

I had to share about the scrumptious birthday cake I made my sister for her birthday. She picked this specific cake, and I was so glad she did because it was delicious! It was a pumpkin spice cake with a maple cream cheese frosting. I am a BIG fan of pumpkin, so anything with pumpkin (even if it's not the season!) is going to taste great to me. The recipe called for cake flour which definitely made this cake stand out from just a pumpkin bread. It was fluffy and light and tasty! I was a little disappointed with the frosting--it needed more maple flavor, but if I added more syrup to the frosting, the consistency would have been way too thin, and it was already thin enough. It was hard to frost this cake because the frosting was a little thin. I tried firming it up again and definitely let the cake sit in the fridge for a good while. I topped the cake with some toasted pecans!

I also made some chocolate cupcakes, mainly for my husband because he doesn't particularly care for pumpkin :( The cupcakes were really good too. I've made them before, but didn't remember just how great they were, and I'm not even a huge chocolate cake fan. They were topped with a chocolate ganache made with dark chocolate and then, for a little flair, I added some chocolate sprinkles :)

All was De-Lish!!

Chocolate Raspberry Tart

To celebrate Chad's new job, I made my first tart with the knew tart pan I received for Christmas. It was a tasty chocolate tart with fresh raspberries on the bottom. I don't think I've ever had a tart before...maybe the typical fruit with custard tarts, but this was a little piece of heaven. I've been interested in making tarts because I love the way they look. The crust is so perfect and the design is so pretty. It gets crunchy and has such a great flavor. I made an almond crust for this recipe, and the nuts brought out a lot of flavor. Tarts don't keep for very long, so I brought most of the leftovers to work and put it in the break room. All of the girls gobbled it up and I received compliments the whole day on it. Pretty impressive for my first tart! And you can never go wrong with chocolate and raspberries :)