guess who is having a red velvet kind of birthday?

The tradition of giving Mr. M sweets on his birthday started way back in 2005… (yes… let’s pretend that’s WAY BACK… long before the number 3 came back into style as the predominant number in one’s age) and it began simply enough with trying to recreate two of his favorite desserts at home: caramel brownies and mini key lime pies. I went crazy in my little graduate school studio and reached for the Internet to help me with my recipes… and in the end delivered an insane amount of treats to my boyfriend of 5 months as a gesture of cooking love. Overwhelmed by the shear amount of goodies, the treats were subsequently divvied out among any friend that made a visit to his apartment… and thus began the saying that seems to follow my baking/dessert-making around time after time… “CAAANNNNDDDDY BAR!” You see, our friend Frank was one of the lucky recipients of the caramel brownies that I had made, and upon biting into the gooey-sticky mess of chocolate, he uttered this strange groan of euphoria and indulgence in the form of “CAAANNNNDDDDY BAR!” I can honestly admit that I thought it odd that the recipe called for an entire package of KRAFT caramels to be incorporated into the brownie mix… but who was I to question this recipe that so many others loved and cherished. Anyhow… anytime I make anything that is remotely sweet and yummy, I get this response from my loving husband… and I’m still not sure if that means he likes it/hates it/is just eating it because I made it. ;)

This year’s birthday treat isn’t quite worthy of the euphoric remark above, but at least I know it’s a sincere favorite of his… I mean, it’s pretty hard to mess up a good red velvet cupcake. My fallback recipe is from the Cake Doctor, complete with peppermint cream cheese frosting. I loaded up the cupcake carrier with 12 of them for his co-workers, and hopefully a few more can be taken in tomorrow, as not to leave the rest of them in a pile for us to consume over the week. I mean, birthday treats are great, just not when the birthday family has to endure the punishment of the treats at a later time!