I have a wonderful family living in the bottom half of this house-turned-duplex. I bake all their birthday cakes because I love them and I love to bake. The oldest child turned 14 this past summer and I made her the Dark Chocolate Caramel Cake in the first photo for her birthday. It was taller than it looks, but I only took one photo. They loved it.
Yesterday my only sister had a birthday and my niece and I agreed that it would be great to make a Chocolate Caramel Cake. I made the family’s favorite chocolate cake recipe, which is widely known in the baking world but we keep the recipe a secret, you know. Then I made a fudge frosting, mixed in a lot of gooey caramel (also a secret) and frosted the split layers very well. It is all about the frosting for some members of the family, plenty of frosting. Then I smooshed some more caramel around the top of the cake, implanted the colorful candles and the result is below.
Birthday present time first. Last week my daughter, on her almost-weekly visits to hang out with me one night, sorted through a lot of photos and correspondence that I saved over many years relating to family. It included letters that my sister’s children wrote to me or both of us when I was living in London, going to graduate school, bringing my daughter into the world. After she left me on Saturday morning, she went to Kinko’s, made color copies of the items she’d chosen, waited until she was alone in the lakeside apartment she shares with her aunt, then added text and commentary, put them in a scrapbook and presented it as a birthday gift. She made scrapbooks great again!
See how tall that cake is? Two thick layers, cut in half. Emergency ice cream with a cake slice last night was one quarter of a Klondike Bar with Heath Bar coating. It worked just fine.
Ms Chef in Seattle 