Birthday Cake

It was recently my birthday.  Even though I may not like how numerically old I am, I'd still rather have birthdays than run out of them!  The birthday tradition in my family is that the birthday person gets to choose what is for breakfast and dinner that day.  When I was a little girl, I always wanted French toast for breakfast and shrimp for dinner.  In those days, shrimp meant the breaded kind that came in a box.  It still felt fancy to me since that was usually the only time we had shrimp out there on the farm.   I loved it.  In fact, I still love shrimp although not the breaded kind.  I love them best sauteed in butter and garlic and fresh lemon juice tossed with linguine and some fresh Italian parsley.  In fact, that's how we introduced Peter to them recently. 

This year, I asked for Paul's pasta with a sauce of diced sun-dried tomatoes (soaked in white wine), lots of garlic, chopped smoked salmon, parsley, and cream.  It is delightfully rich and creamy.  Along with a nice salad, it was the perfect birthday dinner.  

Ahhh, but what about dessert?  I am the dessert maker in the family so I make my own birthday dessert.  I don't mind a bit and I'm always assured of getting something I like!  This year I made carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  I had forgotten how much I like carrot cake!  It's just the right amount of sweetness and spice and, if one is imaginative, one can even say it's healthy with all those grated carrots in there.   Yeah, right.  The fun part about the cupcakes was what was on top....candied carrot strips.  I know that sounds odd but they are a sweet and sort of classy looking top for a carrot cake.  They are totally easy to make, too.  Just use a vegetable peeler to make strips of carrot.  Make a simple syrup of 2 cups sugar to 1 cup water and boil until the sugar dissolves.  Add the carrot strips and simmer for 10 minutes.  Shut off the heat and let it sit for another 30 minutes.  Remove the carrot strips from the syrup and lay them on a rack.  I put a piece of waxed paper underneath to catch the drips.  When they are dry, put them on top of the cupcakes or layer cake or whatever shape your carrot cake is.  Very cute and different.  You will impress people with how trendy cool you are!  At the very least, you will make yourself happy on your birthday.