Birthday week

Another year has gone by. Since my boyfriend John Mayer has been taking a much needed break from the limelight and is not touring this summer, I had to come up with something to do for my birthday this year.

My birthday started a few days early with a BBQ at Jill and Chris's house. Chris is an awesome BBQ'er and basically made a dinner made to order for me. We had burgers with blue cheese in the middle and bacon on top. He also grilled some corn on the cob for us and we had some cut up watermelon. It was all delicious!!

After dinner, we walked over to one of their three cupcake spots, Mr. Cupcakes. These were good, but not great. Clockwise from top left: Lemon, Tiramisu, Vanilla/Vanilla, Coconut.

This is the Vanilla/Vanilla, which they named "Birthday cake" so it was a perfect choice for me.



Last year, I went to see JM with Anne Lise in a venue near her town of San Diego. About a week before my trip, I sent an email to another one of my Norwegian friends, Sara, and told her she should come down too. I don't know why she couldn't drop her life of a full-time job and three kids and husband on one week's notice, but she couldn't. This year, I didn't wait until the last minute to invite her and when she said she could come, our reunion was on!! Sounds like a perfect birthday to me!

The day I arrived, Lise picked me up and we went straight to the beach. Afterwards, we found the closest cupcake place (thanks to smart phones!) and ended up at Sugar & Scribe. The owner/baker was there and we chatted her up for a bit. My first thought was "never trust a skinny chef" but in this case, that saying does not apply. My routine is to go straight for the Vanilla/Vanilla but the chocolate buttercream frosting looked so good, I went for that one. And it was a good choice. It was maybe the best chocolate frosting I've had. (except for maybe Lise's norwegian chocolate frosting.) It was super creamy, but not super chocolately, which is good for me. I didn't get a picture of it, but this is what their display looked like:



On my actual birthday, we went to the famous Sprinkles, which has opened a location in San Diego. Although these are good, it sort of bugs me that they are so basic but cost $3.50 each. However, I do like them a lot. The cake is so moist and the perfect density, and the frosting is the perfect sweetness.

Anne Lise, Me, Sara

Sara & Me plus 4 delicious cupcakes (guess who got two??)

Clockwise from left: Lemon, Vanilla/coconut, Vanilla/chocolate w/sprinkles, Key lime



For our last cupcake adventure, we went to Corner Cupcakes . Lise had heard about this cupcake truck and then this week, the owner won "Cupcake Wars." We drove way out of our way to find the truck and were able to congratulate the owner personally on her win. However, the congratulations were a bit premature because these cakes were very marginal.

We tried all three of the show-winning cupcakes: (bottom from right) Belly Buster (Peanut butter & bacon cake, chocolate ganache filling, salted caramel frosting), Full house (coconut cake with lemon curd filling and lemon coconut frosting) and Two Pears (self-explanatory). We also got (top from left) Vanilla/Vanilla, Chocolate cake with salted caramel frosting and red velvet with cream cheese frosting.



The Belly Buster:



The verdict: The winner was the Two Pears cupcake. I have never had a pear cupcake before and it was pretty good. The lemon curd was not tart enough and the whole Full House cupcake was bland overall. But the peanut butter/chocolate/bacon/salted caramel cupcake was NO GOOD. The cake was really dry and crumbly, and did not taste good. The salted caramel frosting was pretty good, so I just ate that off the cupcake and left the rest behind (can't go wrong with salty and sweet).

The non-winning cupcakes were another story. One bite into the vanilla and chocolate cupcakes and we all agreed they were clearly from a mix. I could not be more disappointed. Again, the best part of these cupcakes was the salted caramel frosting.

So, the winner this week was Sugar and Scribe. Plus, they had lots of other tasty looking treats. I indulged in only one besides the cupcakes and that was a no-bake cookie. YUM!!