Happy Birthdays - featuring two cakes - Strawberry Yogurt & Cream Cheesecake and Chocolate & Strawberry Cake

I wanted to do something fuss free for my birthday as my energy levels seem really down nowadays... and I can't even drink a cappuccino outside but I didn't want this to dampen my spirits and I still wanted it to have some excitement. I want to thank all my friends who took the time out to come over for my lunch party... made me feel special and the icing on my cake was my husband, who was out of town, walking into the house quietly to surprise my toddler and me. Oh, how perfect can some days get!!!!

So, coming back to my cake, I wanted something with strawberries and chocolate to bring out the goodness of fresh berries you always need to have some fresh cream or mascarpone... after a lot of thinking I thought I will make a No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake for myself. I had some hung yogurt lying in the fridge, to that I added half its quantity of low fat cream and about 200 grams strawberries and pureed it all together. Added some agar-agar to set it and just poured it over a base of crushed chocolate biscuits that had been setting in the freezer. And yes, that's it. The small tiny sliver in the left hand side corner of the collage is the only pic I managed to get of the cake but he at least got a piece of my Birthday cake :)!

For the kids I made my "Most sinful Chocolate Muffins" sans the chocolate chips. I had some leftover buttercream frosting and made some mascarpone and chocolate frosting... and used it to frost the cupcakes for all the kiddies... I think they enjoyed it as they aren't any cupcakes left and they aren't any pics of it!

Another cake that you will see featured in this post is my friend Preeti's birthday cake, which was a day after mine. Her kids wanted some totally chocolate but I know she prefers something lighter - so I wanted to incorporate some fruit in the cake. I made a vanilla buttercream frosting and used it and some strawberry pie filling to sandwich two chocolate yogurt sponge cakes! A chocolate mascarpone icing on top with fresh strawberries and toasted almonds around the sides to hide all the imperfections... I still have to get feedback on this one and hope it is fine!

We also had some snackies & lunch which I am going to leave for a later post - please email me if you need exact measurement for any recipes and you can contact me if in Delhi or Gurgaon to place any orders :)!