CD's birthday cake: a success story

Growing up in Chile, my favorite cake was Torta de Mil hojas, which translates to Thousand layer cake. It had been a long time since I'd eaten it and my idealized version sorta contained flaky pastry interlayered with "manjar" (dulce de leche to the rest of South America?) On my most recent visit there, I made a point of getting some cake (as much as I could eat really) and I even got some to-go after an inport, so that for a couple of days after going out to sea, we were still eating cake. It was awesome, but quite different than my idealized version. The bready/cake layers were not flaky, in fact they were more like thin flat bread or cracker layers. The layers are not sweet in themselves which makes sense since the manjar is so rich.

When I asked CD what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, he mentioned repeating the coconut cake that I had made earlier this month for Easter or his wording might have been more along the lines of "whatever". He likes most of the cakes that I've made for him and his long-time favorite (usually made for his birthday) is carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. This year, I wanted to try something new and I had the manjar already made (bought in Chile- thanks Sis!) which CD loves, just loves.

I found a recipe online and went to work. This recipe is somewhat labor intensive, but so worth it! It tasted just like I remembered. Delicioso!!

To start, make dough and divide into 10 balls which you roll out into 9" discs to be baked

Baked layers (not quite round)

Manjar!! (to make it at home, just boil a can of sweetened condensed milk (in the can!) for 3 hours making sure that the water in your pot doesn't boil away)

Moisten the layers with a bit of brandy (I used some lucuma liqueur since I didn't have brandy on hand) before covering with manjar and beginning the layering.

I adorned the finished product with some walnuts:

CD loved his cake. Happy Birthday!

I know you're wondering what happened to the other half of the cake... we couldn't wait until dinner. We had been invited to Craig and Stephanie's for a lovely dinner in CD's honor, but earlier in the afternoon, we dove into the cake (ha!)

Minnesota Spring time

It was great to spend a long weekend visiting with Paige and Dave.
The guys did all the log chopping while Paige and I moved the logs into the shed for next winter. The weather was pleasant and mostly dry.

Paige drives the haul!


Tandem chops!


I became mesmerized by the maple tree, I'd never seen these flowers before:

We got organized (for a change) and had the opportunity to see Guy and Kelly. Guy and CD rocked out in The Itch back in those high school days. So fun to see them!

Kelly and Guy sample Dave's home brews:

Additionally, our friend Dave was driving through town that same weekend. We got to visit with him and his two daughters, Laura and Emma. The girls enjoyed playing with the bouncy balls and eating tiny cupcakes:

Easter Activities

Easter flowers

CD and I dyed some Easter eggs:

and thought of family celebrating Easter elsewhere and we painted eggs for them.

The Tucks:

Happy Easter Kendall:

the Easter bunny:

I made my first ham, as well as a coconut cake:

Renegade Carrots

These beauties survived the winter in the garden. I'm currently planting the summer veggie garden and had to evict them!
They were still tasty!

We miss you!

Baby Tour 2009

One thing I really like about living in California is Cesar Chavez Day. I realize that it is meant to be a day of service, but usually it means a 3-day weekend. This year it fell on a Tuesday, so CD and I made it a 4- day getaway.

We drove to Portland on Friday after CD finished his last lecture and spent a lovely evening with Robyn, Craig and Anya. Robyn had made a delicious curry and we shared some laughs.

The next morning we drove to Seattle, eager to see friends, especially those that had recently had newborns.

Laila is only 10 days old (Good job Sarah and Stefan!):

Jesse is 5 weeks old (Congratulations to Jamie and Mike!)

Anna holding Reid (9 weeks?) while big brother Henry snacks:

Marcus (almost 3 months)- what a smiling cutie!

In addition to meeting all the new little people, I was thrilled to visit with my brother Kendall (no pictures please) and my friend Derek and his family. Derek's wife Randi recently celebrated her birthday and I hadn't seen her for quite a while, so it was nice to catch up and see their kids growing too.

The good thing about staying until Tuesday morning was enjoying a happy hour with my ex-coworkers. Here are Drew, Derek, Kristen and I at the Sand Point Grill:

It was fun to see Seattle, although it is in a state of constant change which disorients me at times, and all the wonderful friends. In particular, big thanks to Jason for being our host!