Sarah’s Surprise Birthday Party: A Behind the Scenes Look!

Sarah has always dreamed of having a surprise birthday party.  So, for her 25th birthday, I gave her one.  It was Tuesday, May 20, after I finished my last exam of the semester.  I thought to myself, a very clever thought, “Since Sarah also likes the blog, I will make a surprise blog post about it!”  Here it is!  The birthday presents just keep on coming…

A Surprise Party: A Story Told Mostly in Pictures

Here I am, with the cake ingredients arrayed on the counter-top, preparing to prepare for the preparations.  I made a red velvet cake, courtesy of one of my favorite food blog people, the Pioneer Woman.  Cake found here.

Our home pre-tidying.  I know; it is a disaster zone.  Actually, it wasn’t bad at all.  I just cleared off some surfaces.  By piling everything on the bed.

Mixing the cake ingredients together.  A vital step in the process.  They don’t turn out as well if you skip this step.

The batter.  I tried to get the food coloring levels right.  At first, it was pink velvet.  I added blue to darken it; all of a sudden, we had purple velvet.  I added more red, resulting in maroon velvet.  A good enough color!

The cake baking.  Again, an essential step.  If you skip this one, it is too runny to cut neatly.

The first layer crumbled a little as I dumped it out of the pan.  You might think this is a problem.  Actually, this made sampling a lot easier (and less noticeable)!

The mid-cooking clean-up.  While the first layer cools.

After you drop the top layer on it, you can’t even tell the bottom was all crumbly.

Mixing up the frosting.  The cake was good.  The frosting was phenomenal.  That recipe was also courtesy of the Pioneer Woman, found on the same page as the cake recipe.

Birthday decor, compliments of cousin Elena.

More decor.  An artful display of cards on the piano with an arrangement of flowers in the foreground.  The flowers were a gift from Sarah’s parents.

Here is a subset of the assembled group.  Naturally, we are playing Bang!.  If you were hoping to see the cake, I am sorry.  There is no photographic evidence.

We had a great time.  Sarah was thoroughly surprised.  Planning a surprise party was harder than I thought.  I was constantly on edge while trying to keep it a secret for a month.  Definitely more stressful than the exams happening at the same time.  But worth it!