As the resident family baker--not that I am the only one in the family with mad cooking skills--I guess baking just appeals to me more than to my siblings... On a side note, I always find it so interesting that my sister, my brother and I all ended up with crazy mad cooking skills. Growing up, my kitchen memories aren't the picturesque child standing next to mom watching what she was doing. In fact--not that my mom never cooked--but most of my memories are of me making some huge mess by myself and without my mom's knowledge...and then laughing at the shock on her face when she strolled into her newly flour covered mess of a kitchen followed by the screeches of "I swear Yanna, one day I'm going to come home and the whole house is going to be burned down!" Growing up in a single parent home, we all pitched in more than it seems our two-parent friends ever did. Dinner was another chore that we all had to help out with and we rotated days so everyone had to cook.

At the time I just loved being in the kitchen and never really thought anything of it. Looking back, I value it so much more because that was the start of my joy and passion for cooking. Luckily at the summer camp I went to, Summer Discovery (best summers ever!), I got to take advanced cooking classes and I never turned back. It's been one crazy experiment after another since then and I wouldn't have asked for my childhood to play out any differently. Whenever I meet people my age who can't cook...ehem...my husband...it's just flabbergasting. I don't know how they survive. At least my lovely husband straight up admits my cooking is definitely high up on the list of reasons why he married me, and as long as he washes the dishes I don't mind.

Anyway, back to where I started, as the resident family baker I was commissioned to make the cupcakes for my sister's baby shower. While we all can't wait until little baby Mia finally makes an appearance, the baby shower for her and her parents posed quite a fun challenge in the meantime. Of course I wouldn't be me if I didn't come up with some hair brained overly challenging plan. Since the co-ed shower is Caribbean themed and I wanted to have some variety in cupcake choices, I finally settled on 4 batches of 12 cupcakes in Rum Cake, Coconut Lime, Roasted Banana, and some Chocolatey chocolate flavor. I had originally planned to also make all kinds of different toppings and Caribbean themed decorations for each different cupcake but once I realized I didn't want to spend the whole week making them, I decided to keep it simple. Check out what I ended up with...

So my friends and I annually overindulge ourselves in the bliss that comes every spring in New Orleans--Crawfish Season. What better accompaniment than an overindulgent, overambitious 7 layered chocolate cake? According to everyone in attendance, none! It was the hit of the party, which made me feel oh so much better about spending 2 weeks of planning and 1 week of production on this bad boy.

Complete with fondant crawfish popping out the pot and completely edible fixins including meringue mushrooms, marzipan potatoes and fondant lemons and even served on a newspaper wrapped board, I spared no expense in making sure all the details were accounted for, even if I did get a bit lazy and never made it around to making the ears of corn on the cob that were in the initial plan.

Here's how it all played out (yes go ahead and call me crazy now for even thinking I had any business trying to pull this off):

This could quite possibly be my favorite cake ever. Really truly ever! Anyone who is a chocolate peanut butter fan...and even some who aren't will LOVE this cake from Sky High: Triple Layer Cakes. 

I've also made this recipe into cupcakes with just the cream cheese peanut butter frosting, which were delicious but just didn't quite have the same umph as the cake. DELISH!!! I really am quite at a loss for words at how absolutely amazing this cake is.