CLAIRE IS ELEVEN!

Claire turned eleven this week. We celebrated with a special outing – a trip to the Friends Experience in Chicago. It's an exhibit all about Friends the TV show including recreated sets, costumes and artifacts like scripts. Somehow Claire and her friends got into watching Friends a while back so it was a perfect thing to do for her birthday.

Balloons in the car on the way home:

Then we just celebrated as a family with birthday doughnuts and birthday cake.

The cake details – I made a big german chocolate cake from the Baked cookbook. And I made an ermine frosting from the Midwest Made cookbook. I replaced the white sugar with brown to make a sort of caramel flavored frosting. This type of frosting has become my favorite for cakes because it's light and fluffy and not too sweet. You cook flour and milk first and then add butter later. Some recipes have you cook the sugar with the flour and milk and some have you add the sugar later with the butter. It's so easy – have you tried it? The chocolate cake itself was good but I'm not sure it beats Grandma Dice's chocolate cake recipe.