BIRTHDAY SUCCESS!

Well, we just finished celebrating my husband's 26th birthday and although the day started a little on the rainy side and we had to do a birthday dinner instead of lunch, I think it went really well.  We drove to our usual Joe's Crab Shack and started the night with the crab nacho appetizer, and let me tell you, for a girl who really doesn't do seafood, they were yummy! I wanted seconds!

The cake turned out better than I thought, but for a second there, I did freak out!  As it turns out, I made a rookie mistake.  I didn't have a whole pound of powdered sugar for the raspberry buttercream so I had to do some math and figure out the new ratios for it.  I think I over did the butter but it was still delicious!  However, my kitchen looked like it had been through a "Buttercream vs. Chocolate ganache" battle.

In the end, it worked out for the best.  First I decided that I would cover the cake in the ganache, because I thought that 1. my husband would think that a pink cake was insulting and 2. he really wanted a chocolate cake, but then I double guessed myself and thought that it would just be too much chocolate, so I went back to thinking I should just frost it like the recipe called for.  And I guess things happen for a reason, because I only had enough buttercream for in between the layers and not a drop extra to frost the sides. So I took a deep, deep breath and poured all of my chocolate ganache on the top of the cake and let it drip down the sides until the whole cake was covered in chocolate.  It took every ounce of effort I have in my body not to lick the bowl and spatula as the chocolate ganache slowly dripped down the sides of the cake (well down the one continuous side, since it's a round cake).  The cake looked AMAZING! all nice and shinny, full of chocolate goodness, but I still wondered if it would be any good. 

I know that the cake does look a little rough here and there, but to my husband, it was the most perfect cake ever and it really meant alot to me that he thought so highly of it.  I really wanted to make this birthday very special for him, and since I can't ever seem to be able to surprise him with gifts, the cake was the best way to do something special.  But I guess you're wondering what the inside of the cake looks/looked like so here's a pic.  Please don't judge it, this is not Cake Wrecks (which by the way, it's a great blog follow! Many lessons to be learned about cake ordering).

I know, once again, it looks rough BUT it was definitely better tasting than it looks; pinky promise!  Another problem I had with my layers, was that the cake was just TOO moist!  Believe it or not. I should have left them out on my cooling rack a little longer before wrapping them in plastic wrap.  I think they needed to lose a bit more of their moisture to prevent some of the breaking, but overall, I think the layers look pretty even... just don't use an actual level.

Another tradition my husband suggested we add to the birthday ritual is to have the person's actual age on the cake.  We decided to do it because a while back as we were going through my mother-in-laws personal affairs we came across so many family birthday photographs and we could only guesstimate the age of the birthday boy/girl.  We had to Nancy Drew the photographs and gather clues to approximate the age.  So we decided that from now we would just put it out there for everyone to see no matter how old we get!  So here's the final version of the cake.  

In the end, the birthday was a total Success!  We had a blast at Joe's since they make their waiters and waitresses dance to songs like "Working at the car wash", we ate good food, and watched some of our favorite movies and TV shows, and of course, ate some really yummy and chocolaty birthday cake.