Join me in celebrating Tony's birthday with this delicious vintage recipe for Chocolate Coconut Marble Bars

Like many of us, my darling husband is a huge fan of chocolate - so much so, that back in 2012, I penned a post in honour of his birthday featuring ten different scrumptious vintage chocolate dessert recipes. Hop ahead four years - how time flies! - and we're once again on the precipice of Tony's birthday. In fact, it's tomorrow!

Yes, indeedy, August 6th is the big day and will, this time around, see Tony turn 36 years old (and to think that we met when he was just a young whippersnapper of 23!). Naturally this means that I've been on the hunt for a seriously tasty sweet treat or two to make for my precious man, and as such, chocolate filled recipes have been high on my list of contenders.

Of those that I've hit upon in recent weeks, this delightful looking recipe for Chocolate Coconut Marble Bars is by far one of my favourites. We're both huge marble cake fans (as discussed here), so a variation on this classic dish that includes another ingredient (coconut) that we both go wild for seems like it could be a surefire hit.

I often find coconut recipes lend themselves very, very nicely to being made in gluten-free form, too (I think the natural starches and sugars in the coconut have a bit of binding agent, which is usually hugely helpful in GF baking as one is not working with the "gluey-ness" of gluten), which means that I could indulge in these lovely bars as well if I made them as such (yippee!).



{Quick, budget friendly, and the perfect choice for any birthday (or tiki!) party, weekday dessert, school or work lunch box treat, or simple midday pick-me-up, these awesome vintage Chocolate Marble Bars are sure to be a big hit with any one who enjoys the tropical treat that is coconut. Vintage recipe image source. Click here to view a larger, easier to read version of this ad.}



Of course, if coconut isn't your bag - to borrow a great expression from our friends in the UK - you can always leave it out.

If doing so, I might sub in some slivered or chopped nuts, dried fruit (cherries, strawberries, raspberries, or bananas could all be especially fabulous here), candied citrus peel, baking chips (peanut butter or butterscotch would be a lovely pairing), or up the chocolate factor with chunks or pieces of your favourite baking variety - you could even introduce marshmallows, which would give this recipe a bit of a s'mores meets rocky road quality.

Given that we're still very, very much in throws of summer, I'd be mighty inclined to dish up thick slabs of this awesome 1950s desert with a generous helping of ice cream, sorbet, or chilled sweetened whipped cream or crème fraîche. Chocolate, strawberry, black cherry, raspberry ripple, pineapple, orange, lemon, caramel, coffee/mocha, peach, vanilla (French or regular), mint chocolate chip, peanut butter, almond, or coconut would all be excellent flavour pairings with the classic combo of chocolate and coconut.

{Cute vintage birthday card image source}

 

Tony is truly one of the nicest, most caring, thoughtful, intelligent, witty, fantastic people to have ever walked the face of the earth and I feel so lucky to be able to celebrate another birthday with him (and all the more so since we were apart for both of our b-days last year when he was working in America for the summer) - complete with a treat that, much like Tony himself, is all kinds of sweet and wonderful!


Happiest birthday wishes, my love!


And a very happy first weekend of August to each and every one of you, dear friends!

Birthday party perfect 1950s Pink Coconut Snowball Cupcakes

It's hard to believe that nearly a year has passed since I last sat down to debate what I might like to serve when my next birthday rolled around (which I did by taking a look at 15 of my favourite desserts ever).

With my 32nd rounding the bend in precisely one month's time, I've already begun planning my birthday menu and though, as usual, the dessert choice is nowhere near finalized yet (more often than not, that happens at about 11:45 pm on July 9th), a quick peek through my collection of saved vintage recipe ads turn up a real charmer of a mid-century take on coconut snowball cupcakes.



{Looking very, very much like the marshmallow cream filled chocolate snack cakes that are Sno Balls, these adorable pink coconut topped cupcakes would be an ideal choice for any birthday celebration. Vintage recipe image source.}


I love chocolate, I love coconut (and as discussed in this post, it's always a safe choice when feeding my family), and I absolutely love anything pink, plus these darling little cupcakes just seem to have a fun, festive air about them.

They're also a snap to whip up, which means less time spent with the oven on during July - which is always a good thing! I like, too, that they'd be a breeze to put a gluten-free cake mix to work in and that, if so desired, one could certainly leave the coconut untinted.

You could also add in some chocolate chips or pieces and make these double chocolate snowball cupcakes. A favourite extract - say orange, mint, lemon, almond, or coffee - could also be used to jazz them up further, as could adding some festive candies or slices/pieces of fresh fruit on top of the pretty pink coconut.

If one goes in for birthday candles (and I definitely do!), it's always fun when serving cupcakes at a celebratory meal to top each one with enough candles to collectively equal the person's age - or conversely, just select a couple of cupcakes and stick a number shaped candle atop both.

And if you wanted to take this recipe in an especially elegant direction, you could forgo the coconut and instead coat each little cake in a layer of fondant or almond paste and then adorn them with candied (edible) flower petals, grapes or citrus peel. They might not look quite as "snowballish" any longer, but I assure that they'd still be every bit as scrumptious.

I've still got a month to decide on what I'll be making for this year's birthday, and you know, I'm starting to think - in the name of serious scientific taste testing, naturally - that I might just have to road test these cutie pies (err, cakes) before then.

One has to be sure, after all, that they're going to adore their birthday dessert and it's always better to veer on the side of (completely delicious) caution in these kinds of instances. :D

Time for some much needed weekend R&R

At the risk of sounding like a broken record (a similar sentiment kicked off my last entry), this isn't the post I'd had planned for today. The other has already been written and could have gone live, but somehow it just didn't seem right for this easygoing, sun-drenched mid-July Saturday. The subject matter is a bit serious (it's about USPS's steep rate hikes earlier this year), and though I'm sure it will pop up here sooner or later, again, after such a fun filled, enjoyable week, it just didn't seem like today was well suited to it.

This week has been a hectic one, compounded with the fact the fact that I've not been doing too terrific on the health front this month (I was actually really not feeling well on my birthday, and wasn't able to dress up and/or do an outfit shoot that day as a result - but with the help of a mid-afternoon nap, I was able to get through the day and truly enjoyed every low-key moment of it), which stems at least in part from a very heavy new medication that I started last month.

As such, I've had next to no time to spend online so far this week, and I must apologize if I haven't made it to your own lovely blog in a few days. I suspect next week will be more in keeping with the usual ebb and flow of things, and that I'll be online a bit more.

The basement flood situation that I discussed here is progressing positively. In the wake of having to move everything out of our storage room down there (which was actually the point of entry for the water) because of it, we've decided to rent a small storage unit to house most of what was tucked away in that room (such as seasonal decor, old paper work, luggage, etc) and to transform that room into a home gym for Tony, once the flooring situation has sorted out. 

There's nothing to say we wouldn't have done this had we not been hit with a basement flood, but I'm sure it was a big push in that direction, and I must say, I'm excited to transform that room isn't something that I know my husband is truly going to love having under our roof.

And speaking of adding things to our home, last week (spurred on in no small part by the heat wave that rolled through town around the start of July) we had central air installed in our lovely little condo and are so exceedingly grateful that we won't have to rely on fans and window AC units to get us through another roasty-toasty Okanagan summer.

As I've touched on here and there in posts over the years, as much as I adore this season, the heat can be an extra challenge for my health (I hold up much better in the winter in this respect - and sometimes joke, as a result, that I'm going to up and more to the arctic because of how much better I fare in cold weather!), but with any luck, having central air will help significantly in this respect.

Between the heat (outside), the busyness of this week, and not feeling like a million dollars at the moment, I'm pretty spent as we kick off the weekend, which means its high time for some much needed rest and relaxation.

It's too early in the summer to throw in the (beach) towel entirely - there's easily a couple more solid months of sizzling Okanagan summer ahead of us, so stopping to recharge my batteries as often as possible, so to speak, is a definite must.




{Much like actor Alan Ladd and his wife in this 1950s photo of the couple taken by Bill Anderson, my weekend is slated to be as serene and laid back as possible - completely with plenty of outdoor lounging, reading, and time to unwind. Image source.}


Cold drinks, snuggles with Annie (who, hard as it is to believe, will be six months old next week) and Stella, cozying up with a good book (Claire McCardell's 1950s classic, What Shall I Wear?, to be exact), catching up on some of the week's many emails, and perhaps a Netflix movie or two are the name of the game today and tomorrow.

Whether you've got an itinerary so action packed it would tire Indiana Jones out, are planning to join me for some peaceful relaxation, or find your schedule falls somewhere in between, I truly hope that you each have a splendid weekend, my dears!


*PS*

Thank you again, everybody, not only for your awesomely lovely birthday wishes (all across the web), but for each and every one of your blog comments here this week (it was such a joy to read about some of your own fabulous memories of the 1980s).