Happy birthday to me!

Last week it was my 31st birthday. For some reason last year I never really did anything to celebrate turning 30, so I

wanted to do something special this year. My good friend and former college

roommate's birthday is the day after mine, so we decided to have a cookout and invite all our friends.

I have been fretting over the design and flavor of the cake

for weeks. I wanted something that I had never done before

and that was unique, but I kept coming up blank. When looking through my cookie cutters, I

rediscovered the crab cookie cutter I bought last year since it reminded me of my son's favorite bath toy. I had never

used it, and couldn't think of a reason why I might use it.

So I decided I needed a summer theme, but was coming up blank. About that time my son carried his beach bucket through the kitchen, bingo I had an idea.

The weeks before my birthday was crazy. First the oven had to be fixed, again, then we were really busy just like normal. I didn't get my cookies made in time to do royal icing, so they didn't end up being as fancy as I had hoped. They were tasty though and very cute.

I made my gumpaste handle and the flowers decorating the buckets ahead of time, but my handle broke before I got it on the cake. I learned that when working with gumpaste, always have a back up. Then messed up the icing on the front when putting the broken handle on the cake. I smoothed it best I could and declared the cake done.

Later that night we had several friends over for a cookout. The cake was sitting on the table when they came in. Everyone noticed the cookies, but thought the cake was a real bucket at first. That made my day.

I ended up making an orange cake with orange marmalade filling, it was delicious!