happy birthday katie

Yesterday night we celebrated Katie's birthday by attending Trash Palace's first Niagara screening at the NAC. It was a great time, especially since so many of our friends came out. Katie got the chance to promote her Incredibly Strange Movie Night and her sign-up sheet was impressive. Looks like loads of people are interested in being a part of her idea. So to explain - Katie is organizing summer-long backyard screenings of underground/hard to find movies. I can't wait to help out and host one myself. It's probably one of the things I'm most looking forward to this summer and I'll be sure to blog about them as they happen.


I made these cupcakes for the birthday party we had before the Trash Palace screening. They remind me of soft serve from Dairy Queen, but I've heard these style cupcakes are called Hi Hat Cupcakes (which are typically finished by dipping in chocolate). They may look like a ton of work, but they are not. I decided to bake them because I had all the ingredients on hand and was limited to baking without butter. Both recipes are from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. The cupcakes were the One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcake and her Almond Swiss Meringue frosting. The frosting was different than any other I've made in the past. I actually prefer it to butter cream or whipped cream icing. Can you believe it only takes 6 ingredients? Egg whites, sugar, salt, vanilla & almond extract and cream of tartar. I think of it as a somewhat guilt-free icing. The finishing touch was a toasting from the handy kitchen blow torch. One day I think I might do the chocolate dipped version. They are so fun, I can't wait to one day bake these for my children's grade school bake sales.