"birthday" news and stories

These days, dslr's go hand-in-hand with food worship and blogging. The more you photograph your food, the more you want it to look good, creating an ongoing addiction to better cameras and faster lenses. But just sometimes, that love affair works its way onto your tongue in the tastiest way.

The above is a birthday cake that Flickr user fsumaria got at the end of last year. It was part of a pair -- the real D700 as a gift, and an edible, red-velvet version for the birthday cake. Talk about an awesome birthday! My D80 is glaring at me as I go green with food and photography jealousy.

This might not be a homemade version (it was whipped up by www.grannyschmidts.com), but it sure gives some camera food for thought, and an added impetus to continue improving my fondant skills.

Has the world of photography ever made it to you in cake form?

Happy Birthday Mozilla Firefox! You're ten years old now. Well, almost, technically. Even though the Mozilla project wasn't launched officially until February 1998, it was ten years on January 22 that Netscape Communications Corporation announced that it intended to release the source code for its next browser, Netscape Communicator 5.0. It was still in development, but that was the beginning of Mozilla Firefox.

We love Firefox and so decided to celebrate the birth of this fantastic web browser with a birthday cake of its own. Because everyone/thing loves cake! I made a delicious chocolate cake, very moist, dark and rich. The icing is a swiss buttercream so it's nice, silky and not too sweet. Everyone enjoyed a nice big piece after we wished Mozilla a very happy birthday! Here's to ten more great years, Firefox.

As I mentioned earlier, you really need to have cake to make some occasions - birthday parties, etc. - work, although you never need an excuse to make the cake in the first place. These are tasty, basic cupcakes that will be welcomed both at birthday parties and as an afternoon snack with a cup of coffee, so they're a good choice whether you need or just want a cupcake fix. The cake is light, tender and has a lovely buttery flavor from the buttermilk. The frosting is a quick and easy type of buttercream that is a great topping for just about any flavor of cake, although I think that the contrast of vanilla cake with chocolate frosting is a classic one.

The recipe is after the jump.

When we were celebrating Slashfood's first birthday, I featured a cookbook about birthday cakes, but today deserves another birthday cake cookbook because it's my birthday, and a birthday just isn't the same without cake. If you have ever seen one of the Food Network cake challenges, you might already know who Colette Peters is. She is an extraordinarily talented baker and cake decorator who, fortunately, decided to share more than a few of her tricks in Colette's Birthday Cakes. She provides some good basic recipes to work with, including chocolate and white cake recipes, buttercreams, ganache, fondant and others. Once the basics are mastered, you can move on to the decorating. The techniques provided in the book are good, but as with most artistic things, good instructions will not necessarily result in a showpiece. There is no substitute for practice, but with the great photos, recipes and tips from Colette, your cake making will probably improve by quite a bit. Just take care not to make the cakes too elaborate or no one will want to cut in to them for a taste!

Source

What is a birthday party without a birthday cake? A disappointing celebration, that's what. Any dessert can be appropriate for a birthday if you stick a candle on top, but a lovely cake doesn't need candles to be appropriate - especially if the birthday boy/girl doesn't want to think about how many candles should be topping of that cake. This cake recipe is from Cooking Light and is a lovely, easy-to-make layer cake.

The cake itself is light and moist, and the frosting is fantastic. The brown sugar mix melts in your mouth and develops a slight crunch on the outside as it sets. I had to double the original recipe to make enough frosting to cover the cake and a tiny bit left over that was a great dip for some pretzel sticks. I would make the icing alone again and serve dipped pretzels as a salty-sweet snack food, but I wouldn't hesitate to make the whole cake again, either. I just need another occasion.