First Birthday - Food Edition

Well, it's over. I'm calling it a smashing success. It was chill, the food was good, (mmm Qdoba), but most importantly it was filled with love. About 40 people came, mostly locals, but John's family came up from all over Maryland.

Firstly, I hope that Brooks has fond memories of his party since he won't have another till he's 16 or we uber wealthy and can hire people for everything. We did have the food catered, which, by far was the smartest decision EVER. I love Qdoba, and for a casual event they rocked our socks. I did make all of the ice cream for the sundae bar and the cupcakes. I got a little over zealous with the cupcakes and made 70, thankfully I begged employed my mom to do the icing and I had cupcake toppers which made the decorations minimal, which was another fantastic decision.

I'm going to brag for a second on my mad cupcake skills.












Tell me these aren't drool worthy. On the left my version of the Oreo cupcake, and the right is a chocolate chip cookie in a chocolate cupcake.

I was looking for ideas for the Oreo cupcake, I scoured the internet and talked to people. I found lots of recipes with the Oreo on the bottom and batter on top, or chopped cookies in the batter, but it was my non baker brother that came up with this idea. I separated the cookie and placed the side with the cream on the bottom, cream side up. Poured some white cake batter in the tin and then placed the other half on top of the batter then pressed it into the batter. When you bite into the cupcake the cookie has softened some which allows you to taste the cookie and the cake. I topped it with a little bit of cream cheese frosting and some Oreo crumbles. Between you and me though, I think these taste SO much better without the frosting.

The chocolate was an overload and so good. The batter was chocolate sour cream from here. I used my small ice cream scoop and did two scoops per tin. Before hand I made some chocolate chip cookie batter, using the same ice cream scoop I scooped the batter into balls and froze them individually. Once the tins had batter I pressed a frozen cookie ball in the middle, and immediately put them in the oven. Baked for 17 minutes,(in retrospect they should have baked for 15), and voila, yummy chocolatey deliciousness. In all honesty though, these are best warm, frosting is optional. My neighbor and husband have deemed these the best cupcakes they have ever eaten.

As I mentioned I had the main food brought in from Qdoba. They have their catering stuff down to a tee. The package comes with the chaffing dishes, plates, napkins, utensils (both serving and eating) as well as the food. Using them actually saved me money, since we were doing tacos anyway. I know that we will use them again.

I've gotten an email from the photographer with the pictures from the party and I hope to be able to post some of them tomorrow. So stick around and see the cuteness overload from BabyPalooza.