Birthday Cake

So this year, like every year, Justin wanted a chocolate mint cake. I make it a little different every year. But it's always a chocolate cake, with a chocolate frosting and andies chocolate mint candies.

This year, I did a double chocolate cake... Rich, moist chocolate cake with miniature chocolate chips running all throughout. And the frosting was a mint chocolate ganache.. I melted a bag of semi sweet choc chips and a bag of andies "bits" (the candy is alreayd chopped up.. very handy!) with heavy whipping cream in a double boiler.. added some corn syrup and vanilla and let it cool all the way down before moving it to the bowl of my mixer with half a stick of softened butter.. Then I started whipping it with the wire whisk attachment on my mixer.. It wasn't thickening up as much as I wanted, so I set the bowl down into another bowl filled with ice water.. that did the trick and hardened the ganache up just enough so it would take the air the mixer was whipping in.. I ended up with a really rich, really creamy frosting that was just minty enough without being over powering.

Justin LOVED it and said this was exactly what he wanted when he was trying to describe it to me.. and he wants this to be IT from now I. No version could top this one, he says. :)

As always.. cake porn...


Awww.. Ain't it purty?? Justin particularly liked the little spiral on the top.. He watched me do it by turning the cake stand and holding the spatula still and he thought it was the coolest trick ever, LOL Sweet kid. Sometimes.

And here is one of the birthday boy blowing out his candle..


He said that it was the best birthday.. and thanked me a lot of times tonight for everything we did.. The pizza park last night was a lot of fun.. he got to do laser tag and go karts and got about 2/3 of the way up the difficult path on the rock climbing wall. And tonight The Husband took him to get a new bicycle.. and while at the store, Justin found some new scooter thing that has a kick pedal on it or something and really wanted that instead.. so we made it clear that we wouldn't listen to him gripe about not having his own bike until his birthday next year if he chose the scooter over a bike.. The Husband made him walk around the store and think about it.. and he said he was okay with it and settled on the scooter. He's pretty stoked and had a lot of fun testing it out after it was all put together.

Man, the next time he has a birthday, I'm offically going to be the mom of a teenager. I know that's not for another year.. but I swear, I was just decorating my house for Christmas last year like 2 minutes ago.. Is it really time to do it again? The years seem to be moving at lightening speed as I get older..