Yesterday was my little brother’s 18th birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMES!! if you’re looking at this) and we celebrated by cooking him a FEAST. And in true James Shaw fashion, the only colors that could be found on our plates were white and brown, and the only vegetable served was potatoes. My sister, mom, and I spent the majority of our day in the kitchen whipping up one of the most intricate meals we’ve ever attempted to make for one sitting other than Thanksgiving. Lemme get a drumroll for the lineup.

Roasted potatoes. New York Strips. Funfetti birthday cake with chocolate icing and nonpareils. Béarnaise sauce. Mac and cheese garnished with bacon bits. All homemade and some of the best things I’ve consumed in a while. Below you can find all of the recipes we used. Enjoy!

Roasted Potato Recipe

Ingredients

One bag of small potatoes of your liking (can be fingerling, baby dutch, etc)

Olive oil

Salt, to taste

Preparation (super easy!)

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and line a baking sheet with tin foil or parchment paper. Rinse potatoes.

2. Cut the potatoes to the size you prefer. We cut them into fourths.

3. Drizzle potatoes with olive oil and a good amount of salt. At this point, you can also sprinkle on any spices or herbs you’d like to add. We kept it simple and stuck to just salt!

4. Cook potatoes in the oven for 30 minutes.

Funfetti Birthday Cake Recipe

We used this recipe from Baker by Nature for the cake. This was one of the best vanilla cakes I’ve tried and plan on using this recipe time and time again in the future. It had the right amount of fluffiness that you’d expect from a vanilla cake due to the egg whites added to the batter. The modifications we made were subbing out the icing for the one below since the store was out of cream cheese (thank you supply chain). We also didn’t add sprinkles to the cake base because we got nonpareils instead of regular sprinkles, and the recipe clearly states not to use this kind. Emma made a stencil out of parchment paper and cut numbers out to make this decoration using the nonpareils!

Chocolate Icing Recipe

Taken from the back of King Arthur’s Unbleached Cake Flower box

“In a large bowl, stir together 1 1/4 cups (106g) natural cocoa powder, 1 cup (454g) confectioners’ sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir in 1/3 cup (74g) hot water and 1 tablespoon (14g) vanilla extract. Add 16 tablespoons (227g) softened butter and 3 additional cups of confectioners’ sugar, stirring to combine. Beat the frosting at medium-high speed for 1 to 2 minutes, until lightened in color and fluffy. If frosting cupcakes, make one and a half times the frosting recipe.”

We followed this recipe in full for the chocolate icing, except we added 2 additional cups of confectioners’ sugar instead of 3 towards the end. It still turned out delicious, and was the perfect amount of sweetness!

Béarnaise Sauce Recipe

My mom used a recipe from NYT cooking to make the sauce and it was also delicious! I ended up smothering my entire plate with it, macaroni and cheese included.

Mac and Cheese Recipe

Found this recipe on an Instagram Reel made by chef @johngs and immediately sent it to James. It tastes like the mac and cheese from California Pizza Kitchen but with a thicker sauce and more flavor because of the added roasted garlic to the cheese sauce. This could definitely be a crowd-pleaser to serve at a dinner party!

This was definitely a meal to remember.

💘 Hanna