Coco's Birthday Weekend - Part II

10/11/2012

Cake on the beach?? Count me in, every time. Throw in a squeaky toy as a present on top of all of that and you will also have yourself one happy Shih-Tzu! This was such simple but very special way for the three of us to celebrate the little one who makes our lives fun and full of laughs, and I am happy to share some snippets of our evening with you.

The weather was perfect and the rosy sunset was simply icing on the cake. Speaking of cake, how about this Mini Berry-Almond Cake... totally cute, right? Since Coco is also known in our house as "The Strawberry Stalker", I knew I had to create some sort of strawberry cake. Seriously, if she sees you with strawberries, she will follow you and stare you down as if she firmly believes that 20% of the bowl has her name on it. Needless to say Coco was quite smitten with the cake! And would you believe it's not only made with love but also with healthy, protein packed ingredients, and is also 'people-friendly'. Luckily, Coco is the sharing kind and let Tanner and I steal a few scrumptious bites!

She immediately fell in love with the yogourt almond 'icing', well that was until she saw her birthday presents: a couple of plush squeaky toys. They stole the show, and she joyfully squeaked them... a lot... and all the way home. I loved seeing how happy everything made her that night, she deserved it!

It was like she had her own little paparazzi, between myself and the people walking by on their way to the jetty pier, stealing iPhone shots as they walked past and wishing her a happy birthday. I guess that's something they're not used to seeing on the beach!

MINI BERRY-ALMOND CAKE

The Cake:

1 3/4 cup almond flour

2 TBS honey (preferably raw)

3 eggs

2-3 TBS of coconut oil, melted

A handfull chopped organic strawberries and a couple of extra for topping (blueberries work too!)

The Icing:

1 cup of organic plain yogurt (choose one with low sugar content)

2-3 TBS of almond butter or natural peanut butter

Preheat your oven to 350. Use coconut oil to grease two ramekin dishes (depending on the size of your dishes you may have enough batter for 3 layers). Mix your cake ingredients in the blender until smooth and fold in the berries. Pour batter into the prepared ramekin dishes, about 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 15- 20 minutes. Let cool.

While your mini cakes are cooling, mix together your yogurt and nut butter until smooth. Once cool, spread the icing onto the tops of each layer and stack. Garnish with berries of your choice, and the cake is ready to eat!