birthday dessert bar

I made a bunch of desserts for my birthday and had people over to help me consume them

but before that, Chad suprised me with one of his signature marshmallow cakes

homemade coffee marshmallow, an almond paste filling, covered in chocolate

sweet potato cake w/maple glaze

mini pistachio cupcakes

coconut almond drops

oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

mini chocolate stout cupcakes made w/Guiness

oatsies - a chewy oat bar dipped in chocolate

cookie-stuffed cookies - mini oreos inside a chocolate chip cookie

s'mores whoopie pies - graham whoopies filled with marshmallow creme and chocolate ganache

coconut macadamia shortbread

samoa cookie pops

pistachio cakeballs

coffee cakepops

peanut butter & jelly pretzel balls

mint oreo truffles

thanks to everyone who helped consume these treats

after stuffing ourselves, we went to the Alibi for a few hours of karaoke

and I ended up getting lei-ed about 15 times

it was a good birthday

canadian thanksgiving

for our Canadian thanksgiving celebration, I made nanaimo bars and sucre a la creme

the nanaimo bar recipe I tried came from the city of Nanaimo website (BC)

they claim it's the ultimate nanaimo bar recipe

first layer

second layer

this is poured over the bar to make the third and final layer

the one difficult thing about these bars is removing them from the pan after refrigerating

they turned out very decadent and everyone enjoyed them

I will definitely make these again

the sucre a la creme is a Canadian fudge-like sweet

it's quick and easy to make, you even do it in the microwave

Quebec's sucre a la creme

1c. white sugar

1c. brown sugar

1c. heavy cream

mix together & cook in the microwave for 10min, then let stand for 5min

mix w/electric beater for 4min

pour into cube shapes and refrigerate 1-2hrs

I didn't have anything cube-shaped, so I used a mini muffin tin

and swirled the top of each with a toothpick to even them all out

the best part about these is it makes your kitchen smell like one of those

candy stores at the mall that makes caramel corn in the window

and it tastes like a delicious fudgy caramel treat as well

Chad made poutine using the fryer the kleins left behind

adding the mozzarella cubes to the fries

and the brown gravy to finish it off

poutine, maple-glazed ham and veggies

Canadian (and Scottish) dessert plate

topped off the evening with some CC

hooray for Canada