Devil's Food Chocolate Cake Birthday

We've been on vacation this week.  It's the week we call birthaversary - our anniversary (5 years this year!) and my birthday (41 years this year!).

I used to be very tra-la-la-de-do-da-la about aging.  Each birthday was a "how cool, I'm older.  It's time to buy more underwear."  Now, though, after forty I feel a little weirded out.  First off, how did I get to be 41?  The idea that 41 years has happened seems mind blowing to me.  Secondly, they let me drive a car and buy houses and stuff?  I feel like a kid pretending to be a grown up a good amount of the time.  Hopefully, not because I am hopelessly immature but because I hold on to my youthful zest for life.  Yeah.

We celebrated with some nice walks and nice dinners.  We ate at Bertucci's for our anniversary.  We just love that place.  It's the rolls.  I think it is really all about those rolls.  We went to Red Stripe in Providence with Hilarie and Cara.  Always yummy there.  We ate at Not Your Average Joes one night - I had their special pecan crusted chicken with sweet potato wedges.  The chicken was so moist.  I had the other half for lunch the next day.  Last night we went to Bittersweet Farms.  It's one of my favorite places.  I had a chicken and spinach panini.  It was perfection in a sandwich.  I look forward to the second half of that for lunch today.

The more I bake, the more I discover that most restaurants have crappy desserts.  I ordered desserts from almost all of these places.  Don't judge.  From Bertucci's I got a lemoncello (sp?) cake - not so good - soggy and not lemony.  From Red Stripe, we got a key lime tart - not so good - lousy crust - bitter limes.  From Joes, we got the peanut butter thing - peanut butter ice cream pie with oreo crust and hot fudge.  It's always great.

For someone who likes to bake.  Just make your own cake.  After much fantasizing, I decided to make a devil's food chocolate cake.  Nate said he wanted just whipped cream for frosting.  So last night when I baked, I made up some whipped cream (which I put in my coffee this morning).  But I read online and discussed with a real baker that whipped cream falls apart as frosting.  I'm planning on adding cream cheese to it to stabilize it today and then take some pictures.  Okay, I'll be back.

(time passes)

After much time, I decide to stabilize my already whipped cream with some cream cheese.  Old faithful cream cheese.  Why not?  I melted some milk chocolate, added a bit more sugar, and a bit of cocoa powder.  I mixed up the cream cheese, then added the whipped cream and blended until incorporated.

So here are the cakes out of the oven and cooled.

Sorry, I am no where near food photo mastery.  Sigh.

So then I frosted them with my light brown frosting.  

It was too loose to truly decorate with but I think it came out okay.  I shaved some milk chocolate on top.

Okay, recipe:  The recipe is slightly modified from this recipe from food.com  It is a lovely devils food cake.  Is it devil's or devils?  Whatever.

2 C flour
1t salt
1t baking pwdr
2t baking soda
3/4 C cocoa pwdr
1 1/2 organic cane sugar
1 C veg oil (or liquified coconut oil)
1 C boiling water
1 C buttermilk
2 eggs
2t vanilla (one in the original recipe didn't seem like enough to flavor something so intense)

Sift dry stuff together into mixing bowl.  Yes, you really need to sift this one.  Pour in water, milk, and oil and mix.  Once combined, add eggs and vanilla and mix til smooth.  The recipe says it will be liquidy but mine seemed like normal cake batter.

Pour into two 9 inch rounds or similar and bake at 325 until toothpick comes out clean (somewhere between 15-25 mins depending on your oven - never believe a recipe - always check your cakes often).

Frosting:
Whip one pint whipping cream.  Add agave to taste.  Then realize that whipped cream won't work.  Add 2 packages of cream cheese.  1/2 bar melted milk chocolate, 2 T sifted cocoa powder.  Taste.  Lose yourself in the deliciousness.