Back in January, I turned 25. One quarter of a century. I consider this the first "big" adult birthday. 21 is, of course, a milestone, but everyone's too drunk to remember! Four years later 25 comes along. I was ready for it and I'm quite happy with my situation at 25! I made a promise to myself to finally take a trip to Italy in celebration of the big 2-5 and Bryce and I are planning to go in November :)
I'm still getting used to warm weather birthdays, which is a great improvement from shoveling snow and wearing long John's on your birthday! This year, I was lucky enough to have my parents and my cousin Dana in Hawaii to celebrate with me. January is also "birthday month" for my Mom and for Dana, so we all celebrated together! (Don't ask me what it is about March that makes the magic happen in our family!?!?!) Anyway... we threw a big party and I decided to make our cake.
I found this recipe for Heavenly Candy Bar Cake and it looked great! Since baking typically ends up in disaster and tears for me, I followed the recipe closely. I did, however, cut back on the amount of candy bars used, only because we didn't buy enough!
Heavenly Candy Bar Cake:
Melt 9 fun-size or 21 mini candy bars (I used Snickers) and 1/2 cup butter in a saucepan for 5 minutes, stirring until smooth, then set aside.
Beat 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of butter (the recipe called for shortening, but I used butter) with your fancy new mixer for 3 minutes, or until well blended. Add 3 eggs, one at a time, until blended.
Combine 2.5 cups flour and 1 teaspoon salt. Stir together buttermilk and baking soda. Gradually add flour mixture, alternating with buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. (These are the kind of rules I find annoying and unnecessary while baking, what if I DON'T end with flour mixture?! HUH?)
Finally, stir in melted candy bar & butter mixture and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, then pour batter into cake pan. I used 2 square pans which ended up not being the same size! I had to trim one cake down, who wouldn't like their rough edges trimmed off, plus I got to have cake for breakfast since there were little pieces leftover.
Into the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Time to make the frosting: Chocolate-Marshmallow Frosting. I won't go into detail here because I majorly, seriously, severely screwed up this frosting! It ended up being a clumpy mess in a water bath. Bryce was running to the store for ice and got some Duncan-Hines chocolate icing, and it was, literally, the icing on the cake!
This cake was true to it's name, Heavenly! The taste was pure bliss and it was so heavy and dense I'm sure a few slices and you'd be meeting your maker after the ticker stopped tickin'! The website says the recipe is from Southern Living and I believe it. Paula Deen would love this cake, y'all!
The little pieces of candy bar on top make it adorable!
I was turning 25, Dana 35, and my Mom "45" but we cut corners to fit all the candles = 2,345!
A week later, on my actual birthday, my parents and Bryce surprised me with this Steelers cake! It was perfect since we had, and won, a big playoff game that day! I think it's safe to say that it's my favorite birthday cake ever :)
Our happy crew after the Steelers WIN!
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