An Old Fashioned Summer Birthday

 Summer birthday's are always special. It's a day full of sun, sand and presents. Not only that it's full of fun food , classic fare that works well no matter what age you're turning.

Of course a warm weather birthday means one thing - barbecue. Two of the most classic dishes to serve are hamburgers and hot dogs. These are perfect because they're easy to make and are always a crowd pleaser. Hamburgers could be homemade or bought in cases like the Bubba Burger. A traditional hamburger recipe starts with lean ground beef mixed with Worcester sauce and garlic powder. You can add a beaten egg along with bread crumbs for more body and chopped onion for more flavor.(this last will give it the same flavor as what you get at Mc Donald's ).Already made burgers, including the vegan Beyond Beef ones are also a good choice and an easy cook on the grill. For a birthday party, have a fixings bar that has sliced onions , tomatoes, pickles and lettuce. You could also add already cooked bacon to this and slices of cheddar cheese. Create  a special sauce like Burger King and McDonald's .This is easy blend of ketchup, mayo, swee t pickle relish and white vinegar.A tiny pinch of sugar is also added. As for the hot dogs, these are just fine grilled plain. You could brush them with melted butter before cooking for a crispier texture.

Sides should be the classic potato salad along with three bean. The first should stick to tradition, with the potatoes being mixed with  chopped celery and hard boiled eggs. Dress in mayo and season with a little bit of sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Three bean salad can be made of the birthday celebrant's favorite beans, A popular mix is kidney, garbanzo or chick peas and white cannellini beans. The dressing is a sweet and sour one, made with oil ,apple cider vinegar and a bit of sugar or honey. A fun classic barbecue treat are devilled eggs. It's not only a tasty party food but is a perfect appetizer for a barbecue. A summer birthday demands for an ice cream cake. This can be made two ways . You can bake a cake and then layer on ice cream as the filling. Frost with whipped cream. The second recipe is pure ice cream layered with a crunchy mix of Nabisco chocolate wafers crushed and mixed with melted butter.Layer this and one or two flavors of ice cream before freezing. Add sprinkles  for a more  festive touch before serving . End the party with s'mores under the stars. 

A summer birthday party should be full of good classic summer time barbecue foods. The grill should be fired,. There should be favorite and easy to make salads. Dessert should be  spectacular with large slices of ice cream cake followed by s'mores.It's a birthday wish come true,

Great Desserts, So So Peaches

This has not been a great year for peaches. The perfect one is rare thanks to a February blast that killed off burgeoning buds. Luckily the fruit can be turned into wonderful creations that focus on their sweet, mellow flavor.They are even better than just the peach itself.

Samantha Seneviratne,creator of the interesting dessert blog, Cake Love, wrote about this amazing fruit in yesterday's New York Times Food section,Even though 2016 hasn't been their year, peaches can still be turned into tasty desserts.One that Ms. Seneviratne created is an ice cream cake. This is not one of the slap dash ones that is a slab of vanilla topped by crumbs and then another slab of chocolate. This actually has cake, a real butter on,e with five tablespoons of butter in the recipe. The ice cream is a no churn one which also includes peach preserves along with fresh raspberries - which are coming into their second season right now. The fresh peach is there in macerated form as it and the preserves are folded into the whipped cream. The cake assemblage is easy. First line a 9 by 5 loaf pan with Saran wrap leaving a six inch overhang all the way around. The cake is cut into thirds, making three rectangles.There is a layer of cake, then a layer of cream followed by the drained raspberries. This is repeated again for two more times and then freeze until firm for at least eight hours. It's topped with  a fruity mix of peach slices and fresh raspberries that have been sitting in sugar for ten minutes.

Another yummy dessert is Ms. Seneviratne's take on cobbler.This summer classic has been updated with a hazelnut infused crust.. She adds tiny wild blueberries which are a nice foil to the peaches' honey flavor. These can be picked if you have access to wild blueberry bushes however they can also be bought at farmer's markets and even found in the frozen food section. These frozen ones are actually beneficial because it helps the fruit mixture from overcooking and becoming mushy as the biscuits bake all the way through. You can use the big berries found in your supermarket, but Ms. Seneviratne warns that they are watery and have a weaker flavor.The topping requires hazelnut meal which can be bought in grocery stores and even on Amazon. It gives it a nice crunchy exterior  while still having a soft, pillowy middle.The crust also has a  half a cup of butter and a third of a cup of heavy cream.. it works well with the fruit mixture, also enhanced with vanilla bean seeds and sugar.The entire cobbler is baked for forty to forty-five minutes when the fruit comes bubbling from below and a toothpick inserted in the crust comes out with moist crumbs. Most cobblers are usually served with a pour of cream on them but I can see the first recipe's peach ice cream as a nice accompaniment here.

Don't despair if the year yielded up a lousy peach harvest. These recipes can show off their mellow sweetness and lush flesh. They are even more delicious in an ice cream cake or hazelnut infused cobbler.

The Perfect Ice Cream Cake

A summer birthday or a summer party deserves a good ending namely an ice cream cake. Most people usually head to their local ice cream shop to get this treat. However an ice cream cake is easy to make and assemble. What  is great about a home made one is that it can be customized with favorite fillings.

The first step is deciding is how elaborate you want to make it. There is one recipe that just calls for layering ice cream sandwiches in a nine by thirteen baking pan. Hot fudge and Cool Whip is slathered on between layers. The icing is another layer of Cool Whip with a heavy dusting of shaved chocolate.It is then covered and frozen for an hour before serving.Caramel sauce can be subbed in for the fudge for a different spin. Another idea that takes a little more work but has a lot of flavor is one that takes inspiration from those Dairy Queen and Carvel cakes. It's easy but has a lot of steps. The recipe involves first placing a springform pan in the freezer for fifteen minutes.  Vanilla and chocolate ice cream is used, however you can vary the flavors. Try chocolate and mint chip for mint lovers. Coffee lovers should have layers of coffee ice cream. The filling is crushed Nabisco chocolate wafers mixed with that hard shell topping (although you could use a fudge sauce as a binder too.)  The three layers are frozen for two hours and then iced with whipped cream. Multicolored sprinkles are then scattered on it.You can also pipe whipped cream rosettes  around the bottom and top or even make buttercream roses if you're feeling ambitious.

Another idea is baking a cake and filling it with ice cream. If you don't have time buy the mixes. There are some good ones such as Red Velvet  and German Chocolate. You can also make scratch cakes too, and make them a bit healthier by using whole wheat flour. These can be made in layers or as a sheet cake, depending on the size of your party. The ice cream can also be homemade if you have an ice cream maker. You can try different fruit varieties here too. Think a vanilla sheet cake with a peach, blueberry or strawberry ice cream along with a topping of fresh fruit too. A fun idea is a "naked" ice cream cake , one without icing. Bake three scratch cakes, try a marble or chocolate chip one  and then  as you would with filling, cover the layers with about an inch of softened ice cream. You can even blend in candy, fruit or cereal for some texture and more flavor.Just "ice" the top most layer with a thin layer of ice cream and decorate with sugar gel or with sprinkles. Some home bakers recommend using a "dense" cake like pound cake because it holds better than the lighter , more crumbly cakes. It's up to you with what kind of cake to use..Any ice cream cake can be served with chocolate or salted caramel sauce.

An ice cream cake adds so much to a summer party. Making one and customizing it is a real treat  because it's full of favorite flavors.It's a nice way to welcome a warm summer night.