Laurel is a Christmas Cake!

Today was Laurel's birthday and she requested two things: tacos and margaritas. So, I headed off to the foreign foods store to pick up the taco and margarita fixins, and while I was there I of course grabbed some cake mix.

Now, there are two very important ingredients to a mexican food themed birthday party that they do not sell in Japan (at least not that I can find): limes (or lime juice) and frosting. So, I bought juice with the picture of what looked like a lime on it (turned out to be kabosu, which is a green Japanese citrus fruit that is kind of like a lime, but different).

I also tried to make my own frosting. But I chose a kind of gross recipe that used cocoa and it became a kind of sticky caramel-ey mess.


Dara took a picture of the cake baking in my microwave.


This is what my kitchen looks like when I fill it with Mexican food. Yes I even got tomatoes because most normal people like them. The Boy was kind enough to cut them for me because he knows my hatred of them.



Finally the birthday girl and the other guests (Kim-chi and Paulette, as The Boy and Dara were already there helping). Kim saw a DVD that I had bought, thinking of giving it to The Boy for Christmas because he really likes this one French director, and was asking me about it. Kim is currently studying French because her boyfriend is from Quebec, and she was interested in the film. I haven't seen him but The Boy has (I'm glad I chose not to give it to him).



Laurel was getting excited while I was cooking. We do love our tacos and burritos, but can't really get them here.



It has been a while since all of us have gotten together. So it was kinda cool to catch up and just hang out.


I put them in charge of making the margaritas since I was doing the cooking. Laurel had a good time pretending she had had a few too many margaritas.



After dinner it was time for the cake of course. In Japan, they used to call women who were unmarried at 25 Christmas cakes. In Japan they often buy these little chiffon cakes covered in white icing and fruit and eat them at Christmas so they are called Christmas Cakes. But you don't buy a Christmas cake after the 25th of December now do you? Do you want a woman after 25? Apparently not (T_T) So I wanted to write "Christmas" on the cake. There was extra room so Paulette added "Baby."



As you can see, the icing looks, not so yummy. It was kinda good but it was really a sticky mess. But Laurel was sweet and didn't complain.