Building Laurel's Cake

She requested "yellow cake with chocolate ganache". My pleasure!

The birthday-girl wanted to help make her cake. Here she is mixing the batter. I always put the mixing bowl in the sink because it's easier to reach that way.

Into the oven.


Thirty-three minutes later and voila!


Since the man of the house had a birthday earlier in the month, I had a half-batch of ganache already whipped up and ready for Laurel's cake. Unfortunately the whipped portion, which is used as a crumb coat, was too dry to spread.

What to do? Heating it on the stovetop would turn it into a runny mess. After some thought, I channelled Duff Goldman and "busted out the power tools". A few blasts of the heatgun was all it took and the ganache was workable once more.


Crumb coat applied.


We let the cake chill for a few minutes in the fridge to harden the crumb-coat. Next, we drenched the cake in warm ganache and allowed it to cool again.

I normally decorate birthday cakes with whipped ganache, but I was out. Instead, we placed mini-marshmallows around the bottom of the cake, and used melted chocolate for the rest.

We started by standing a disposable piping bag inside a glass, then filling it with melted chocolate.


I piped out some butterfly wings onto waxed paper, then sent them to the fridge to cool.


I piped the words onto the top of the cake, and arranged the butterflies around the cake using melted chocolate "glue" where needed.

Ta daaaa.