Birthday Cake

My birthday is a couple of days away!  Instead of either purchasing a cake or relying on someone else to make it, I decided to bake my own birthday cake.  Yes, some of my coworkers described me as anal and controlling but, honestly, nobody else could give me exactly what I wanted.  When else could I bake such a celebratory monstrosity and have other people finish it off?

It all started on Tuesday, when I had to purchase the ingredients (and a 9" springform pan).  On Wednesday I baked the three layers, per bella eats' recipe.  Things I learned about cake baking from last night:

1. Bake all three layers together.  With only one pan, I spent 2.5 hours (50min x3) waiting for the oven to do its thing, plus cooling time between each batch.  I finished at 1:45 am and had to wake up at 6 to get to work!
2. If baking all three layers at once is not an option, then do not mix wet and dry ingredients until before baking.  By letting the baking soda and baking powder sit for several hours in the refrigerator, the cake went flat (read: really dense).  I had read that adding more leavening would only make the product taste metallic.  The best solution to this is to keep dry ingredients dry until needed.
3. Each round needs to cool for at least fifteen minutes before being removed from the pan.   In trying to speed up the process, I made the mistake of trying to remove one just three (3!) minutes after coming out of the oven.  Not only did the entire circle crumble into pieces, but I burned my fingertips on both the cake and the pan.
4. I get too attached to chocolate.  My heart almost stopped when I dumped half of my Ghiradelli chocolate into the mix (what if I screwed the recipe up?  there it all goes!).
5. The secret ingredient to decadent chocolate cake is freshly brewed coffee.  Now, I have only had one cup in my entire life.  I had to drive to the local gas station, hoping that they would still brew coffee at 10:30 pm.  They did.  Then I had to figure out which coffee to purchase -- breakfast blend, decaffeinated, or Colombian roast?  I chose option 1.

And then there was tonight, which I had reserved for the filling and decoration.  The food processor, a wedding present that my parents never used, that I lugged all the way from California two weeks ago no longer works.  Panic mode: how do I puree the raspberries?  Solution: I defrosted them until they turned to mush and then used the hand mixer on high speed to puree.  Step two in the filling process involved straining the seeds.  My cheesecloth idea clearly didn't work.  I was already exhausted by 8pm and instead of straining the mixture even more, I rationalized that the cake needed some interesting texture.

I could not bring myself to throw away the broken cake round, so I hid it as the second layer.  I discovered -- after the fact -- that cake-makers are not supposed to smother fruit filling right onto the cake.  A thin layer of frosting is supposed to be applied between the cake and the filling so that it is not absorbed.  Too late.

Next I had to make a chocolate ganache, which I have never done in my life.  The heavy cream to chocolate ratio, I hear, is key to the right texture.  I was worried that the recipe I had chosen would lead to a disaster, but the birthday fairy definitely worked her magic for me tonight.

Ta da!  My first professional cake.  It was sheer luck that it worked out for my birthday.