My sweet 20

Checking out my birthday presents

As many of you may have noticed, it was my birthday on Saturday. Goodbye teenage years, hello twenties. (not that I feel that much different than last week when I was still 19)

Click 'Read more' for the whole story and more pictures!

Making kinuski/Russian candy

Pink meringue in the oven

Birthday bunting

More birthday presents

Decorating my birthday cake

Dutch apple crumble pie

And more presents

A huge pile of birthday presents

Birthday cake

Sipping pink prosecco

Rain

My dress: VILA, Earrings: Kalevala Koru

I went to Hoorn on Friday evening already and on Friday evening we made the cake and the filling. D's little sister was helping and I was stressing out very badly. It was the first time I made a cake without my mother's or grandmother's help and being overly ambitious, I had chosen a rather complicated cake. Still, I was stressing out for nothing and D and D's family found my behaviour slightly amusing. (okay, I was being extremely silly)

On Saturday morning D gave me my birthday present. He had wrapped my dress in a package, knowing just how much I love unwrapping presents. I might be 20 but inside I'll still remain a little kid. Like every year, I was also happy to see what I got from my Christmas/advent calendar. Downstairs, in the kitchen, I got more presents from D's mother and stepfather. I had already gotten a winter coat from them, but D's mother thought I should still get something on my actual birthday too. So now I have a knitting and crocheting books and more wool.

In the morning we continued with the cake decorating, perhaps not my brightest idea since we weren't going to eat the cake until after dinner. I had planned to make a cake with a kinuski icing but unfortunately Dutch cream is healthier than Finnish cream with the fat percentage of 35 instead of the 38 required for making kinuski proper for icing. No matter how long we cooked the cream and the sugar, it wouldn't get thick enough. Luckily we had enough cream to cover the cake with that. The kinuski we decided to serve as a sauce, as it did taste good even if it wasn't fit to go on the cake.

We also made pink meringue, as D's little sister doesn't like cake. I love making meringue, there's only so little that can go wrong and as soon as you have separated the yolk from the egg whites, it gets ridiculously easy. Not to mention that they taste good. 

I also got to video call with my grandparents, my parents and siblings, and my friends. So sweet that they all took the time to call with me. D's stepfather's parents also came over for coffee and from them I got warm slippers (pink, of course) and another knitting book and more wool. 

Before dinner came D's stepfather's brother with his two daughters. D's grandparents also came, and slowly but surely everyone started to arrive. We didn't have many people over, only the closest family but as D has a big family, it was enough people to fill the entire kitchen. We opened presents and ate pasta and cake that fortunately tasted better than it looked. 

It was such a lovely birthday, thanks to D and D's family for making it happen.