The Birthday Cake Experiment

Today began my the first day of the birthday cake assembly.  You may think that I am crazy, and you may be right, but there are people that start this WEEKS in advance!  That seems a little too over the top for me, plus I can't imagine that the cake would taste any good after sitting around for a week or two, just saying.  Anyway, since it's Zoe's first birthday and she's my first baby, I HAD to go a little crazy for her birthday, right?!  Anyway, I decided to keep it a basic yellow cake with a whipped chocolate ganache middle and chocolate buttercream icing on the outside.  I'm going to decorate and cover it with marshmallow fondant tomorrow with my sister in law, Erin, so I will post the completed pictures tomorrow.  I have to say, the cake turned out really good.  I was a bit over exuberant with my ingredients so I ended up with enough to make a small sheet cake to taste.  Steve was very disappointed in having to taste test...lol.  I got all my recipes online at various recipe websites.  I just chose them based on the reviews they had.  I really liked how the yellow cake turned out.  I must admit, I have never actually made a yellow cake from scratch before!  After making this, however, I've decided it is SO much yummier.  Here's the website I found it at if you're interested:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/07/best-birthday-cake/

I didn't use the frosting recipe she recommended just because I was "dirty" icing the cake for fondant and I wasn't sure if her frosting would work well with it but it looks good too.  I will have to try it another time.  Instead, I just used a basic chocolate buttercream icing recipe.

Believe it or not, I took this picture AFTER I had iced the cake.  Yes, I went a little overboard on the icing.  I was just nervous about not having enough since I was making a double decker cake.  For the center of the cake I made a whipped chocolate ganache frosting.  Here's a picture of it before I whipped it:

If you like dark chocolate, holy hannah...is this the icing for you!!!  Yumm-O!  I just got the recipe for this from the Food Network website.  It's an Alton Brown recipe although it's pretty darn basic and you can find similar recipes all over the internet:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/ganache-frosting-recipe/index.html

When I started putting the parts of the cake together, I was a little afraid that the ganache would be too soft and cause the cake to slip and slide off but it held together.  I'm hoping a night in the refrigerator will help it solidify.  Here's the semi-finished product (tomorrow is decorating day!):

I thought I did a pretty darn good job for this being my first time for a huge cake.  I really enjoyed myself today too.  Maybe this is a hobby that I can start getting into.  We'll see:-)  Anyway, I will post pictures of the finished product soon and, of course, pictures of the birthday party too.  We are doing a "Wild about 1" theme for Miss Zoe.  Zebra print, hot pink and lime green!  Should be fun:-)