Celebration

It has been a busy month or so.  Can you tell?  When the day winds down, I focus on spending time with the family, cooking, and - obviously - knitting.

We have celebrated the offspring's birthday!  Rule at our house:  birthday celebrant sets the menu for the family meal.  Oh, how I love my child!  The menu: homemade macaroni and cheese with bacon; cooked apples; baked sweet potatoes; lima beans; and ice cream cake.

I've never made an ice cream cake.  As usual, I developed a plan and dove it.  First, I baked a homemade brownie layer (cake style vs fudgy) in an 8" layer cake pan.  I removed the brownie from the pan.  After it was completely cool, I wrapped it and placed it in the freezer.

Next, I began making the ice cream layers.  The offspring chose (from bottom to top): mint chocolate chip, cookies and cream, and cherry chocolate.  I softened the ice cream and used the 8" layer pans to form the separate ice cream layers.

After at least overnight in the freezer, I began to assemble the cake.  I placed the frozen brownie layer on the serving dish.  One-by-one, I removed the ice cream layers from the pan by dipping each in a sink of warm water for about 10 seconds and turned it out on ice cream cake.  I placed the assembled cake in the freezer overnight.

The next day, I prepared a double batch of Super Stabilized Whipped Cream and decorated the cake the day of the dinner.

After decorating, the cake was in the freezer for approximately 6 hrs before serving.  All components were frozen.  It was a little difficult to insert the candles in the whipped cream.  The next time, I will most likely utilize the Stabilized Whipped Cream for frosting.

It was enjoyed by all.  We will definitely have another sometime.

I could have done without the mint chocolate chip and the cherry chocolate together.  Of course, it wasn't my celebration.

Our birthday gift to the offspring was a trip to Universal Florida and a visit to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  We had great fun.

The offspring had a few items on a punch list for the trip:

We drank butterbeer.  (Both frozen and liquid - frozen won out as the favorite for our family.)

Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans were consumed.  (Plus more brought back for sharing.)

Pumpkin juice was consumed.

And most importantly - a wand was procured from Olivander's.

Several knitted items have been completed during the blog absence.  I'll gather all the pictures and include them later.

I also have some wonderful holiday gift suggestions.  I'll include those next time.