We hope you had (or are still having) the best time at our birthday party. Thank you so much for coming and drinking and snacking and supporting Sifted — it means a lot to us. As promised, you can find our favorite cake recipes (plus some notes + surprises about our food + bev partners from tonight) below.
SO WE’RE HAVING A BIG NIGHT?
BANANA CAKE with TOASTED MARSHMALLOW FROSTING
It feels sacrilegious to say, but I’m not a chocolate/vanilla kind of girl. When my birthday rolls around every July, my ideal cake goes for deeper nostalgia: my grandmother’s probably-from-a-box banana bread meets the burnt-marshmallow taste of s’mores-filled summer nights. This banana cake is perfect — all butter, brown sugar for extra moisture, makeshift buttermilk since I rarely buy the stuff, and probably (read: definitely) an added tablespoon of cinnamon. For fillings, think peanut butter, salted caramel, or chocolate mousse. However, you must frost with Stella Parks’ toasted marshmallow frosting and brûlée it within an inch of its sugary life; I’ll take toasty marshmallows over cloying buttercream any day. Plus, what’s a birthday if not an excuse to set some sh*t on fire?! - CK
YELLOW CAKE with STRAWBERRIES & CREAM
As silky, sexy, soft and smooth chocolate — bars, chips, pudding, pretzels, peanut butter, caramel — can be, no chocolate-anything comes close to the bliss that is a bowl of bright, sunny yellow cake batter. Alison Roman’s recipe is the crème de la crème of yellow cakes. It’s a pudding-like batter of glossy egg yolks, tangy dairy, and cups upon cups of powdery flour and sparkly sugar that bakes into sweet, sturdy layers of cake. (Note: You are required to eat some batter before baking.) My favorite way to decorate them are with swoops of thick, lemon zest-studded whipped cream and strawberry slices for a summery strawberry shortcake-esque stack. - GS
CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY CAKE
In my family (biological and chosen), there is one cake to rule them all, and that cake is Julia Turshen’s Happy Wife, Happy Life cake. There is something so comforting and loving and everything’s-going-to-be-okay about Julia Turshen’s writing and recipes, and this cake is the ultimate example. While it’s a relatively simple recipe, it’s also not just a “throw it all in a bowl and you’re done!!” cake, and that’s why I love it for a birthday. It takes a little bit of extra effort, with its raspberry jam between perfectly chocolate-y layers, but it’s exactly the kind of effort you want to put in for your best friend or partner or mom’s birthday (or... your own.) - Katherine Lewin, founder of Big Night
THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS/PARTNERS:
DRINKS
Avec, a seltzer designed to be a mixer, does what you wish every other sparkling water would do - transform a shot of alcohol into a full-fledged cocktail. They're also absolutely delicious on their own. (We love the slightly spiced hibiscus and pomegranate.) Use the code SIFTED for 10% off your order.
Everybody's favorite hemp and adaptogen-infused seltzer. The two of us will be sipping on Recess all night to chill out from weeks (and those stressful last minutes) of party planning.
As Wh*te Cl*w haters, we're thrilled that anyone seeking a cocktail to sip on tonight can reach for a sleek glass bottle of calamansi or passionfruit Zuzu.
I live dangerously close to Other Half, a brewery that makes the most delicious, fruity, hoppy cans of beer I've ever tasted. I hope hoppy isn't a bad quality to ascribe to beer — I wouldn't know because I hate most beers, which should serve as proof of how good Other Half's is!!!!!
SNACKS
After tasting Tanya (a.k.a. Will This Make Me Happy)’s ultra buttery strawberries & cream cookies, we knew we had to have them at our birthday party. She's also casually whipping up a stunning dark chocolate birthday cake filled with bittersweet malted pastry cream and covered in coffee cream cheese frosting.
Fat, fluffy squares of sea salt focaccia baked fresh today by the one and only Carla ofApt 2 Bread.
And the biggest thank you to Katherine and the team at Big Night for the space, the shopping, the spread & the unparalleled hospitality.
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