Birthday food

Last week was Juan's birthday, so I took the opportunity to make a cake from my Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook. It is a chocolate buttercream cake, but should be called mocha, since it has a hint of coffee in the cake and in the frosting. If you are generally suspicious about chocolate cake for its tendency to be dry, you have to try this recipe- it is so incredibly moist and delicious. In fact, it was so moist, it was hard to keep together when stacking them on my cake stand from the pan. I had to make this after work on Thursday, so with all the cooking and cooling, (and a dinner and movie interlude) I didn't finish it until after 10 pm (as you can see with the microwave clock as my witness in the background). I put raspberry preserves between the layers on the inside, and then frosted it with the buttercream. As you can see, I had a hard time frosting it- the cake kept sticking to the frosting, and I know it was cooled sufficiently, so it was really frustrating (also could have been partly due to the hour, too). It was ugly but delicious and went down well with some extra dry Barefoot Bubbly.

On Friday, I made what was going to be the birthday dinner. (We decided that it would be easier to do cake on Thursday and then go out for dinner). I enclosed salmon in foil with the leftover bubbly, parsley, lemon slices, salt, pepper, and olive oil and then made a traditional English parsley sauce to go on top with arugula underneath. We also had mushroom/carrot risotto and warm crusty bread. The parsley sauce added a slightly creamy texture that contrasted nicely with the crisp arugula.


UP NEXT: A finished Hourglass Sweater (I've been wearing it for a week- on and off, of course)