All Rileyed Up

On Saturday night, we celebrated the birthdays of both Husband and Little No Limit. One was turning four. The other age is inconsequential.

We kept the party limited to just family. It seemed a bit of a cheat since we rented the petting zoo for The Boy’s birthday, but he was turning five, which is such a bigger birthday to me. Really, I don’t know why five is such a bigger birthday, but it just is. I think is has something to do with The 12 Days of Christmas song, though.

Even just the family is a decent size party though. We also invited our best friends (whose new wooden floor I recently treated to a little corkboard action). All told, we had twelve adults and seven children.

Which is more than enough to beat the heck out of a piñata and then scurry for candy while a severed cat head overlooks:

(It made the dogs very happy.)

For food, I made a Mexican bean and corn casserole and spicy quinoa soup that were both vegan, and allergen free. For the birthday cake, I made chocolate cake without the use of animal products, soy, oats, rice, or gluten. The recipe I followed (and altered) was designed for a two layer cake, but since we had two birthdays, I just put each layer on its own plate. I know they don’t look like much, but considering my ingredient list, I think the cakes look mighty nice:

Unfortunately, they did not taste so mighty nice. A lot of people were taking a bite or two of the cake, then saying, “Wow! Great icing!” So I know to keep the icing recipe. I was disheartened, though, so I didn’t bother eating the cake. After everyone left and I was cleaning up, I finally decided to try the cake. And to tell you the truth, it wasn’t winning any baking contests, but really, not so bad that you couldn’t eat it. The problem was it was kind of bland. But as long as you ate the cake with icing (and there was plenty of icing to make that possible), you were in the clear. The icing was supersweet while the cake was not sweet enough. I think if I had made the cake sweeter, it might have been sugar overload. So anyway, I’m making this cake again. With an extra cup of brown sugar. And applesauce. Or an overripe banana. Or both. And maybe some fruit juice concentrate. Whoo hoo! I’m going crazy in the kitchen! (and special thanks to Sister in Law, Husband, and children for eating all of their cake, and double thanks to Sister in Law for eating a second slice and then picking all the candied toppings off the second cake and eating those too - yeah, I saw you do that).

P.S. Also, the remaining cake did go to good use. My teenage niece made a bit of ‘art’ with the leftover cake, a party favor, and one of the candles:

A bit of a fire hazard, no? Could you imagine that call? “Help! My rubber dinosaur finger puppet caught on fire!”