Happy Birthday, Baby

When it comes to birthday cakes, how it tastes is more important than how it looks - that's my opinion anyway. The reason Cole's cake ended up such a mess: Rather than using pink frosting, I decided to try making a pink ganache by substituting pink candy melts for the chocolate in the ganache recipe. It didn't work.

Rylan asked for a Lego cake for his birthday. When pressed for a more specific flavor, he said strawberry with chocolate frosting. I ended up using the strawberry cake recipe from this neapolitan cake, spreading strawberry jam between the layers, and frosting it with chocolate buttercream. The Legos were admittedly an afterthought. Generally, I'm not a fan of cake, but this was some good cake.


For his 5th birthday celebration, Rylan wanted to take some of his friends to Marbles Kid's Museum. It's tough having a birthday in December - everyone's so busy - but I think overall he had a good day.

Rylan at Five Years Old

• favorite color: blue
• favorite food: macaroni and cheese
• favorite dessert: chocolate cake
• favorite thing to do: play with stuffed animals
• favorite video game: Plants vs. Zombies
• favorite subject in school: speech therapy
• favorite book: The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Anderson