Decisions, Decisions...

In a few short weeks it will be my grandma's birthday and I am having trouble deciding what I want to make her for her birthday. The question cupcake vs. cake is always such a hard one because both can be so cute! Here are some ideas I found while browsing the net:

I thought these were the cutest cupcakes ever, just not sure my Grandma would like them as much as I do. I think I will save them, because I have a few other people in mind who would love them!

As you can see, cupcakes can be pretty amazing. They are pretty simple to make and easy to decorate. Cakes, however, are a bit different. They can take more time but look how pretty there are:

So there you have it, too many choices and I just don't know what to make. I'll have to keeping looking through pictures to try and make a decision. Or I could always just combine them...

On a side note, I am very excited for the 4th of July. My boyfriend and I have invited some friends to go with us to a fireworks show and I'm making a picnic. I hope all my treats turn out good, I refuse to let Martha Stewart beat me this time!

Martha Stewart cookies I will be making for the 4th of July picnic. Wish me luck, and I will post pictures of how it all turns out!

What started out as a disaster...

Actually turned out pretty Amazing. This is a cake that my best friend and I made for her boyfriends birthday in May. Pretty simple cake, we just used the funfetti mix from the box. It usually turns out quite well, however this time we had a bit of trouble. At first glance, a cake in a box has to be the easiest thing to create. All you do is add eggs and oil and water generally. I blame the near failure of this cake on one of two things: first, my best friend is scared by the "white stuff" in eggs. So she proceeded to pick most of it out, as well as a bunch of the yolk. It was later determined that picking these things out of the egg when added them to the cake may make them less fluffy and more sticky. This is mostly a theory though, and has yet to be tested. My other theory is that cakes should never be baked in pans larger than 12 x 12 because then they get stuck to the bottom. Also just a theory, but I tend to use it as a rule and don't own any large cake pans.

Once half the cake was out of the pan and the other half fell in pieces, we became a little depressed. It looked as though the cake would not recover but I told my best friend, don't fret! We can stick it back together with frosting! And this is what we did.

This is a character from a cartoon network show that I have never seen, but my best friend and her boyfriend think it's amazing. I don't ask questions, I just make the cakes. It took some time to construct him, because of all the frosting we had to keep freezing it to put more frosting on but in the end we think he turned out quite delightful. My best friend and I are thinking of opening our own shop were she would bake and I would decorate. Judging from this cake it might be a success! All in all, the cake looked great and tasted even better.

Ode to Red Robin

Red Robin is probably my favorite place to eat. If my boyfriend would let me, I would go every week but he claims to be sick of it at this point. Their food is delicious and reasonably priced. In Portland, my favorite one is by Clackamas town center because they have some awesome servers there and the food is always prepared well. The one is downtown Portland off of Grand is also decent, however sometimes the food isn't as awesome cause it's always slammed. The one by Washington square mall is also pretty decent, it never really gets that busy so they are quick. Now I will include a list of my favorite things to order:

- A grilled cheese sandwich with french fries is not on the menu but I order it anyway and it always rocks my world.

- I love the fish and chips, but you have to be careful because they will literally give you 4 fried cod. By that I mean they give you a lot of fish and since I tend to over eat I always make myself sick. It's totally worth it though.

- They recently added a macaroni and cheese to the menu and I was very excited about this. However when it arrived, they only gave me a small portion of mac and cheese and a large salad with it (My portion sizes are off by the way. Small to me means about 2 cups. Hence the title of the blog.) Although I should have been pleased since I need to lose a couple of pounds, I was not because I love mac and cheese. It was pretty tasty though, not enough of a good thing!

- Appetizers, particularly onion tower and mozzarella sticks, and adequately greasy and I always enjoy them.

- Burgers are quite yummy and actually pretty good sized. Just make sure you know how like it done because it tends to come to you pink, and if you're like my best friend and I, we do not care for pink.

Anyhow, if you're looking for an unoriginal yet delicious chain restaurant experience I recommend Red Robin because I love them.

P.S. The Baileys shakes are good too, but they will in no way get you drunk. Just an FYI.