First, it's in the middle of August, and usually the day is rainy or it's so hot and humid and miserable you'd wish it would rain to break the heat.
Then there's the matter of my mother. I could go off on a tangent about the different ways she'd sabotage the day; however, I'll keep on topic and comment on cakes. She'd always ask what I'd want to eat for dinner, and what type of cake I'd want. And when the day would come, she just wouldn't follow through. For days or weeks I'd daydream about the dinner & the cake, and just be let down.
Mom died of COVID19 in May 2020, so this was the fourth birthday without her here; however, it's the 22nd birthday since I decided not to let her ruin my day. And this is the first birthday since she died where I actually daydreamed about my birthday cake.
For weeks, I daydreamed about the cake layers, then the middle layer, which buttercream to use, how I'd decorate it etc, savoring each concept.
I bought baking strips to wrap around the cake pans so the cake layers would bake evenly. I even bought modeling chocolate, thinking I'd make 3D roses (in the end I didn't make them), and I had my eye on a set of Russian piping tips to make buttercream roses. When I was at Sur La Table, I snapped up a set as an impulse buy (never made the roses--I'm behind the learning curve! I can't wait to master the flowers later).
It took several days to execute this cake.
The cake layers were a regular ol' yellow box mix tricked out with ghee in lieu of oil and buttermilk in lieu of water, and I added 2 T of instant coffee powder. I poured into two cake pans and baked according to the box instructions. When cooled, I poked the surface of both layers, and soaked the cakes with Galliano Ristretto, then wrapped and put in freezer, to await their destiny.
Day two involved baking the second layer, which was Rose Levy Beranbaum's Chocolate Oblivion Torte, which is a flourless chocolate torte. It has 3 ingredients, and bakes up into a dense decadent delicious treat. (As delicious as it was, in the final analysis it was too dense for a middle layer, and if I were to do up this cake again, the middle layer will just be the chocolate mousse from Paris Confidential: Top-Secret Chocolate Mousse Revealed on NPR, I've made it before, it's perfect each time, and super simple.)
Day three involved assembly. First, I tricked out a can of ready made vanilla frosting with a can of dulce de leche, which made a faux Russian buttercream with a caramel flavor. That went between the layers, and the crumb coat. The final layer was a dark chocolate frosting.
Initially, I was going to stencil cocoa on top; and somehow I failed that in execution, so I dusted off the cocoa, and just kept moving to the next elements.
Then I tried the Russian piping tips, and my flowers just came out like blobby turds of frosting. I'm not sure if I should have stiffened the frosting up w/additional confectioners sugar or put it in the fridge to firm up more, but I didn't have the luxury of time to figure it out, so I just smoothed the frosting, put on some wafer rose decorations I had on hand, and festooned it with an assortment of Crunchy Pearls by Valhrona.
In the end it isn't decorated the way I envisioned; however, in the ways that matter (the cake, the filling, the buttercreams), the cake was exactly as I envisioned it to be.
Maharajah helped ferry the cake to my office fridge the night before I would be back in the office. I asked him how heavy did he think it was. He estimated 2 pounds, and I scoffed and said, "There's an entire pound of chocolate and a half pound of butter in the middle!" Before we dug into the cake, I put it on the postal scale, and it weighed in at a hefty TEN POUNDS!
The day was lovely with kindnesses from work friends, and we sat outside and shared lunch. It was a good day.
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