Backyard Dinner Birthday Bash

Last night we had a delightfully intimate celebration for DH’s birthday – a backyard dinner for 12!

We hosted 12 for a clam bake and fire under the harvest moon. We hosted a mix of couples and friends for an adults-only evening involving champagne, a fire, and good eats.

I used the same recipe as last time, which can be found here, so make sure you click through to see how it’s done! It’s the perfect summer meal for any backyard dinner because you can serve it in many ways that will reduce waste and the overall mess. We used paper plates so that we could burn them in the fire after. Also, anything involving less clean-up is good in my books!

Because every birthday needs cake, I made a four layer chocolate cake with cream cheese icing and strawberries – DH got to pick the flavour combos, but I got to pick the presentation!  I opted to do my new summer go-to for cake decor – a naked cake!

For more pictures of beautiful naked cakes, you should check out my Beautiful Food board on Pinterest. When I brought out the cake to the tune of Happy Birthday, all I could think was:

from Collected Edition’s Etsy shop

You can buy this gem here.

What do you think of our intimate backyard dinner?