Red Velvet Cupcakes with Creme de Cacao Frosting

When my husband and I were married, the top layer of our wedding cake was red velvet with a vanilla buttercream.  As per tradition, we saved the top layer of our cake to share on our first anniversary.  For twelve months, that cake has been taking up valuable real estate in our freezer.  I admit that on several occasions of frenzied kitchen-purging-fever, I was tempted to dispose of our wedding cake in order to free up room in the freezer.  But I resisted, knowing how disappointed my husband would be to learn that I had thrown out our wedding cake.  That would have been pretty heartless.   

On Sunday, one year after we were married, we finally defrosted our cake.  We invited my husband's family over for dinner and needed to have a dessert on hand.  They were coming to celebrate our anniversary as well as his birthday, which just so happen to be the same day.  I had been worried that the cake would taste terrible, given that it had been in the freezer for so very long. Surely it would be stale, or bland, or freezer-burned.  Surely, no one would want to eat year-old cake, right?

Skinny Shirley Temple Float

Next Sunday, my husband and I will celebrate our first anniversary.  As cliche as it sounds, I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by.  It feels like just yesterday that I was thinking about invitation designs, dress fittings, and seating arrangements.  And yet, I also feel like we've gone through quite a bit of change in a short amount of time.  We've adapted to living with one another.  My husband started a new job.  I acquired a new last name.  And just recently, we inherited/adopted a pet.  

To celebrate our upcoming anniversary, I decided to make a number of desserts related to our wedding and/or honeymoon.  The first is this Skinny Shirley Temple Float.  My husband has fond childhood memories of Shirley Temples.  Apparently, he once drank sixteen (yes, sixteen!) of them at a friend's birthday party.  The man can clearly appreciate a good Shirley Temple, folks.  He likes them so much that, at our wedding reception, we served Shirley Temples as our signature beverage, alongside the alcoholic options.    

Batch 4: Wedding-Themed Sugar Cookies

I have a really special set of cookies to share today.  These were part of a wedding gift to my brother and new sister-in-law, who were married in July (hi, newlyweds!).  I made wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, bow ties, wedding shoes, with a few hearts thrown in, just for good measure.  To make these extra special and personal, I thought the cookies should look like the actual wedding attire.  I wanted these cookies to be a surprise so I tried to avoid directly asking the couple questions about their attire.  I already knew what the wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses looked like.  With the help of the bride’s sister, I was able to find out the color of the bow tie and color of the wedding shoes, as well.