I made the perfect cake

I'm not 100% sure about the claim of the title, as I haven't actually tasted this cake yet. I have tasted the components, though, and I must say, it's going to be pretty difficult to taste anything but delicious with the tastiness of the various components.

If you weren't planning to come to our church Superbowl party (or if you didn't get an invite, let me know and I'll get you the details), then you might want to rethink your decision, since this cake will be there for dessert. If I've changed your mind about coming to the party, you need to bring an appetizer or dessert to share with everyone. I recommend appetizer, since you're going to want some of this cake.

Of course, I've already mentioned this recipe just last week. After a couple of my friends made it, I decided I just couldn't wait until my birthday to try it, so the Superbowl party was the perfect opportunity.

ETA
I should add that I modified the recipe a little bit. The cake recipe, I omitted 1/2 cup of the sugar (does any cake need 2 1/2 cups of sugar for 2 cups of flour?) and 1/2 cup of the water. The smitten kitchen recipe says that the cake is really soft and she had to freeze it to make it easier to work with. That's just not my idea of a great cake. Looking at the recipe, I had no doubt that the cake would be plenty moist without the last 1/2 cup of water and I hoped it would make it a little easier to work with. I was totally right. It was just as easy to work with as my go-to chocolate cake (I can't seem to access the epicurious recipe link right now: try searching old fashioned chocolate cake). I also let it sit on the counter cooling for the evening and covered it with a tea towel over night, so that made it easier to work with, too.

Also, I made a mistake on the glaze (the chocolate peanut butter ganache on the top)... I accidentally added 1 cup of half & half instead of just 1/2 cup. Aaaaaaaaaaagh! I found all the chocolate I had left in the house (about 1/2 cup chocolate chips & 2 oz of Baker's unsweetened chocolate), melted it in the microwave (I should have done this in my glass bowl over hot water on the stove but I was panicking a little), added some more peanut butter and icing sugar to the soupy mess I had and then the melted chocolate. The microwave melted chocolate was kind of lumpy and gritty and it was really difficult to get the glaze as smooth as I would have liked to, but it tasted DIVINE.  And bonus of bonuses, there is a significant amount of leftover chocolate peanut butter ganache in my fridge. Mistakes are rough, eh?

The cake is REALLY rich, almost too much to bear. Everyone said it was wonderful, but you had to take a break part way through. And I should have brought a gallon of milk to go along. That would have been perfect.

12 Layer Mocha Cake

I'm a little late posting today because I was very busy preparing for my wonderful husband's birthday party. When your birthday falls on a weekday, it can be an extra bonus because then you can be celebrated on 2 days! Yay!

I had been busy for the past 2 days preparing this cake.

It is the 12 Layer Mocha Cake that I found on Epicurious. It was delicious. It was unbelievably rich. We served 15 people this cake and are only 1/2 way through it. My co-workers may get some after all! I found the buttercream layers to be a bit too rich. I would have preferred a mousse layer in there instead of a couple of the buttercream layers. The hazelnut meringue was so tasty with a bit of crunch that was fun.

Here are some of my prep pictures, just because I like foodie shots...

The cake layers

 Chocolate for the souffle layers

Melting chocolate for the souffle layers

Egg yolks for the souffle layers

Melted chocolate (mmmm... chocolate)

 The souffle layers

Hazelnut meringue layers

More chocolate melting for the mocha buttercream

Layers ready for assembly

Assembled, ready to chill

Edges cleaned  up

Delicious clean up

Pink pink party and cake

This is a modified re-post from my personal blog with cake pictures and a crafty birthday banner.

Z turned 4 yesterday. We threw a party.

With balloons

And birthday banner - heart pendant style

Z and I made this pendant. She stamped the hearts (ok, it was a Valentine's leftover), I cut them out and sewed them together... and wrote the words on it. Turned out super-cute.

The cake. It's a cherry bits cake trifled with strawberry mousse and
strawberry puree inside, covered first in strawberry buttercream, then again in
pink marshmallow fondant. It was pretty tasty.

The colour is a little off in these pictures because I took the pictures at night after the cake was finished (around midnight).

If any of you are trying your first layer cake, learn from me and do some research on layer cakes instead of just plowing ahead and stacking a smaller cake on top of a larger one. While there were no devastating effects of just stacking a cake on top of the previous layer of fondant, the cake melted the fondant below and it all came off with the top layer when we went about eating it. No one minded, but the bottom pieces didn't look very nice and didn't have much icing when we were serving. I actually preferred it because I find the marshmallow fondant too sweet. My Z, on the other hand, would gladly share cake with me; she'll eat all the icing (fondant, too) and leave the cake for me!

Birthdays are so much fun and they afford such a great opportunity to be crafty and to share that with friends and family. I love that I can share my crafty-ness with my daughter, and she loves it so. She is the sweetest kid ever. She is always so encouraging and thoughtful about her comments about the cakes I make. She loves them. She says they're beautiful and delicious with such sincerity, it is really a joy making her wondeful cakes and other things. I hope your efforts are as appreciated!