The ORIGINAL "30" Cake!

The "30 cake" idea was inspired by the photos you see in magazines of XYZ celeb celebrating a birthday at a club, and the photo has a larger-than-life cake with tall, sparkly candles -- I wanted Shenny to have such a cake (and photo!) for her big 3-0 in LA!

So, as we embarked on a traditional LA afternoon of shopping & eating (brunch at "Toast" in this case....and shopping that included sparkly tops for going out that night from a little boutique on Robertson), we started asking around at bakeries for tall, sparkly candles and were directed to a restaurant supply store nearby that had just what we wanted (and 90 gazillion other things that you didn't even know you might need in your kitchen, all piled high on industrial-sized racks...I was so tempted to by gallon-sized jugs of cookie sprinkles, but since I was just in LA for the weekend I restrained myself)!



There was no time to bake a cake, and there is too much uncertainty in that anyway -- what if it won't come out of the pan, or doesn't rise, etc. etc. -- so we purchased two cakes from the supermarket and armloads of frosting (though not enough and we had to make an emergency drive-as-fast-as-you-can trip back at the last minute in order to make our dinner reservation WITH the cake in hand!). In Shenny's kitchen, the magic took place:



And here is the final result, which we carefully covered back up and took with us to the restaurant for dinner (another AWESOME reason to use the pre-made, store-bought cakes -- handy carrying containers!):



The birthday dinner was a collection of friends (and family!) and was an absolute blast.





And here is Shenny getting to blow out her tall, sparkly candles on her fabulous pink cake!



Couldn't that photo be in US Weekly under "this week in the life of Hollywood"?! I sure think so :) And this was just the beginning of many fabulous & fun "30 cakes" to come -- next up for the big 3-0 and a cake for the occasion, Colleen in MN I think!!