Cakes Under the Influence

Monday was my birthday. Bennett gets really excited about birthdays, and had been counting down the days until my big day. When it finally came, he wished me happy birthday as soon as he got up. Then he sang me "Bonne Fete" just like he learned in his french immersion class. When he got to school that morning, he made sure that all the parents, teachers, and kids on the playground knew not just that it was my birthday, but exactly how old I was turning (I'm 33, in case Bennett hasn't mentioned it to you yet).

Both Bennett and Cole expect cake when there's a birthday. Luckily, I had recently received baking kit from a company called Cakes Under the Influence. They offer products for baking cupcakes and cakes for and served in cocktail glasses. How cute is that? The particular baking kit that I received (Two Under the Influence) was intended as a romantic treat for an adult couple, but we turned it into a family affair. I couldn't very well make cake on my birthday (or any other time) without sharing it with my kids. They'd never let me get away with that. So I made chocolate Irish Cream cake for the adults, and vanilla chocolate chip cake (non-alcoholic) for the tiny humans.

The kit contains two martini glass-shaped baking pans with silicone stands that fit into regular muffin tins. This allows you to bake cakes that will fit into a martini glass afterwards. If you don't have martini glasses, that's okay, this kit also comes with plastic serving glasses that work very well for displaying your lovely cakes. They even provide paper liners so your cake won't stick to the pan while baking.

The idea is to add your favourite liquor to the cake mix provided in the kit. I added 2 tablespoons of Bailey's and 3 tablespoons of coffee to the chocolate cake mix. For the non-alcoholic, kid-friendly cake, I just added water to the vanilla mix and folded in about 1/3 cup of mini chocolate chips.

Not surprisingly, the kids went wild for the chocolate chip cake! The look a little loopy in this picture below. I could not get a decent shot of them because they were so excited and wouldn't stay still. You'd think it was their birthday instead of mine.

Tony and I thoroughly enjoyed our grown-up chocolate cake. I even topped it with a drizzle of Bailey's for extra boozy goodness.

This isn't the first time I've used cocktail glasses for presenting food in a creative way (case in point: Coconut Kiwi Smoothies in Shooter glasses, and Berry Pudding Cake in Martini glasses), so I liked the concept of this product right from the start. It's such a fun idea, especially for the holiday season.


Disclosure: I received a free baking kit for the purpose of this review.