Now that we had everything prepared for daddy’s birthday, we invited daddy back upstairs (did I mention that the cake and soup was a surprise) to take a break from working on his dissertation. He smelled the French Onion Soup simmering and was immediately excited for his birthday dinner. I was not exactly sure what the soup was supposed to look like and taste like, but my husband told me that French Onion soup tastes and looks like the soup I had made (I personally think it is kind of weird because it is basically just stringy onions in broth). He was ecstatic and that is all that mattered.
While waiting for the soup to finishing simmering and for an appropriate dinner time, daddy and son shared some more birthday present ice cream (I made him two pints) while I straightened up the house for our after dinner guests. I invited my husband’s parents and siblings over for cake. The boys even helped after eating ice cream. I also pulled the cake out of the refrigerator so that it could come back to room temperature in time for the party.
With lots of anticipation from my husband, I put the bowls of French Onion Soup together with the toasted french bread and the grated gruyere on top which went into the oven so the the cheese could brown a bit. The soup was served with heavy duty cloth napkins to prevent anyone burning themselves on the hot bowls. My husband devoured his soup in a matter of minutes, he absolutely love it. I was not a fan of the soup at all so he finished my bowl too. Amazingly our son also loved the French Onion Soup and ate his entirely bowl without any prodding, which was impressive! As mcuh as the baby wanted to try the soup, she is not quite ready for all the flavors! We got the kitchen cleaned, dishes laid out, coffee and tea prepared but not brewed/steeped. Once our guests arrived, thirty candles were arranged on the cake and lit. We sang happy birthday, the birthday boy blew out all thirty candles with one good puff, and I cut the cake. Not only was my husband surprised by the white cake (I tend to do chocolate not white) with black raspberry glaze and my now signature Italian Meringue Buttercream, but so were the guests. My husband told me later that this was his best birthday yet!