For My Friend Beth...

Beth had a birthday a few days ago, and I surprised her with chocolate cupcakes when we all met up for sushi to celebrate.  I suppose my definition of "holiday" is expanding, but it feels good to include all the ways in which my friends and I care for each other on days that matter to us.  I, for one, love an excuse to celebrate AND to bake!  Here's what I made, photos courtesy of the Birthday Girl herself:

That would be a chocolate heart-shaped cupcake with pink buttercream frosting and pink sanding sugar sprinkled on top.  Behind that is the fried green tea ice cream sundae the sushi place gave her.  Afterwards she went to claim her free birthday sundae from the local ice cream shop.  Talk about a sweet evening!

These mini-cupcakes were passed out to the rest of the table, including to the gentleman across the room who also happened to be celebrating his birthday.  The buttercream had, by that point, softened into goop, but it sure was tasty goop.

Both the cupcake and frosting recipes came from marthastewart.com.  They were both quite good--the only thing I did differently was to add about 1/3 cup of additional flour to the cupcake batter because it seems very thin.  For all I know, they would have come out just fine anyway.  And, of course, a drop or two of red and blue food coloring in the frosting.  White buttercream just seemed too mundane for the colorful Beth.