[Inez] 50th Birthday Cake

I flew home to MN for the weekend because my mama Ruby turned 50 (a pretty big deal!) yesterday. She said she wanted a cheese cake and a chocolate compost cake. When I asked her what kind of frosting she wanted for the compost cake, she couldn't pick between our classic chocolate cream cheese frosting and chocolate ganache. So I said, "Why not both?"

(Note about the below picture: I've started using a crumb coat -- a very thin layer of frosting applied to entire cake before frosting it for real -- when frosting cakes, both to keep the crumbs in check and to make it easier to spread the rest of the frosting. I recommend it.)

Anyway, I made a double recipe of Chocolate Compost Cake, which you have seen elsewhere on this blog. Then I made a double recipe of chocolate cream cheese frosting (recipe in the first link above).

A triple layer cake is just so exciting.

Then I made the ganache. I used 1/2-2/3 cup cream, heated in a double boiler. Then I added 8 oz of a combo of bittersweet and semisweet baker's chocolate, chopped into bits.

I turned the heat off under the cream and just let the cream melt the chocolate. I stirred it away from the stove until cool, and went to town!

The top layer was baked in a bundt pan, so I filled the hole with raspberries. Any excuse to combine raspberries and chocolate is a 100% decision in my book.

Ruby was happy with the cake, and with the number of guests we had over the WHOLE THING was gone within 20 minutes of bringing it out. Wow.