Birthday Surprises and Escaping Wonderland

Last Saturday was my besties birthday, we had quite a few things planned. Starting with breakfast at mine, then onto Leeds for a bit of shopping and the main event an escape room. What she didn't know was that I was planning a surprise birthday cake, decorating the kitchen and putting a bit of a spread on for breakfast.
Lets start with the cake... I found this amazing recipe from sweetapolita blog. It's a moist intense chocolate cake, with Swiss meringue foisting, dark chocolate ganache and topped with meringue pieces. I came across it on Pinterest and thought how gorgeous it looked and sounded. I wanted to try and recreate the cake and see if it tasted as good as it looked. Its always scary trying out a new recipe, especially when your making it for somebody else. The beauty of a surprise cake is that she would never have known if it had gone terribly wrong and ended up in the bin. I halved the recipe but followed exactly as it was written on her blog and it turned out perfect! I changed up one thing and that was the frosting. I changed the Swiss meringue frosting to Swiss meringue butter cream, purely because I'd read in the comments that it didn't hold up so well and I'd also read on her post that its the best on day one. I knew I would make this the day before and it wouldn't get served until day two, so I found the butter cream recipe on her blog and used that instead. Which is why my butter cream ended up slightly yellow, rather than white as it had butter in it. Everyone loved the cake though, it tasted amazing and its definitely going to be a keeper recipe!

I decorated the kitchen with happy birthday banners, tied balloons to her chair and set her presents out. I set the table for six of us, getting out my best plates, teapot and serve wear. I set the cake up on the kitchen Island with sparklers in it and set them alight once they knocked on the door. The breakfast spread included pan Au chocolates, croissants, French toast, bacon buns and a selection of fruit. Plenty of food to keep us all going, while we were in Leeds.

After breakfast we headed off to Leeds for a spot of shopping. We didn't end up in as many shops as I'd have liked but I think the birthday girl was happy and that's all that matters. I did get chance to take a trip into the large Primark and did buy a few things so expect a haul very soon.

We had a room escape booked in for her birthday with tick tock unlock. We've done one with them before called hatch and really enjoyed it. This time we did the Alice in wonderland room. This one started so differently to the other. Instead of going to the tick tock unlock location, we had an email that said to be at a certain location at a certain time, where they would meet us and take us off to a secret location. All very mysterious and exciting! Of course I'm not going to ruin the surprise and tell you the secret location, that wouldn't be fun. But what I will say is that once we got to our location and entered the room, I was blown away by just how much detail and gone into the room. There was clues and locks in this game, that I've never come across in any other room escape we've done. The effort that has been put into the room was just amazing and I would highly recommend trying out this escape room! To be honest I would just highly recommend any escape room by tick tock unlock, as both times we've been its been great and we've had such a fun time.

Time to answer the all important question... did we get out? 
Yes we did, we had seven  minutes to spare. That's the quickest we've ever got out of an escape room, but I think that's because there was six of us and usually we do it as a group of four. I'm not saying there was anything wrong with having six of us, as we all came into our own in certain areas. But what I will say, is that at the very beginning it did feel crowded for six people to be in the game. I wont tell you why as it will ruin certain parts, but if you try and escape the room you will know what I mean.

Once we escaped from the room we were on a high and decided to go get some food and celebratory cocktails. All of us enjoyed the day and had a great time. My friend Kerry had a great birthday and felt truly spoilt by all her friends and family.

I hope you enjoyed a little insight into our fun day of celebrating our friends birthday. Let me know if you've tried any new recipes lately that when against your usual favourite and if I should try them out. Also let me know if you've done any escape rooms and If so where and what rooms?

ReRe

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