Move over, Jackie? Nope.

Melissa's birthday brought yet another baking foray. This year, however, I didn't use a 1:1 ratio of candles to years.

To create this butter cake with buttercream frosting, I used our new mixer (to mash up butter, of course), a saucepan to make syrup and a recipe from our new cake book. In lieu of a pastry brush, my silicon basting brush applied syrup to the layers--after a night of basting ribs. A fresh spatula came into play, as did our cake plate. And our cake server did the slicing. (It's probably pretty clear that I got into the baking a bit. A glass of red wine didn't hurt, though the box o' butter probably will.) Still, it wasn't quite pro grade.

Of course, I was slow to the punch: My parents sent flowers to her school, and her parents left her a little something special on her voice mail.