Birthday Tea Party

A week or so before my birthday, I treated myself to three new cook books: Macaroons, Whoopie Pies and Brownies. I couldn't decide out of the three which to do along side the cake for my birthday tea party so I ditched the birthday cake and went for all three plus cupcakes and I made it all the day before my birthday - it was a marathon bake day. I think looking back I should have cut it down a bit more as half of it went to friends and neighbours!

For the Macaroons I did pink hearts and coffee macaroons with caramel cream center. They were yummy except after a whoopie pie - for some reason macaroons and whoopie pies don't mix, it's like a sugar overload. The whoopie pie flavours were vanilla & choc chip and caramel fudge.

The brownies were a mix of milk and white chocolate, no nuts as I hate them and very gooey. Maybe a little to gooey but they still got eaten.

Lastly the cupcakes. For my birthday I asked for the '1000 ways to decorate a cupcake' book and luckily it arrived on my birthday, so the cupcakes are inspired by a couple of pictures I'd spotted in there. If you're interested in ditsy cake decoration I would totally recommend this book.