Chocolate is Decadent and Delicious!

(But not decedent because that means deceased!)

Yummy, yummy, yummy! That's all I can say about this cake for Father's Day.

Well, OK, I can say more than that. First of all, let me explain the pain-staking labor that I went through to make this cake...

I baked it, using of course, the wonderful cake recipe that I have fallen in love with. Also, I've been putting flower nails (you know, the kind you make roses on?) in the center of the cake to help stop the doming... an added benefit is that you have another surface to eat the excess cake off of! So my doming problems are much reduced thanks to my wonderful flower nails. (However, the cake was still slightly lopsided because when I put one layer on top of the other, I didn't line them up evenly).

Then I whipped up some chocolate buttercream (which was VERY creamy and smooth- I LOVED it!) and smeared that all over the cake, letting Dad lick the beaters, of course (although my sister did get a hold of one of them). After that, I tried my hand at chocolate ganache, using Kroger's best chocolate, with 62% cocoa: Mmmmm. I have to say, although said sister had her doubts, the ganache turned out perfect! I then smeared that all over the cake (it was very thick, so I definitely had to spread it around with my spatula. If I had used more cream, then it would've been more pourable).

That all occurred Saturday night. I stuck the cake in the fridge and then finished the decorations Sunday after church. Although I had agonized about how to decorate the cake, I realized that as long as the cake was chocolate, Dad would love it, and that was, after all, the point of making a cake for Father's Day. So, how to decorate the cake? With chocolate!

I ended up with some rosettes along the top and bottom (using Wilton's 2M tip)... they didn't look very neat or uniform, but the square of chocolate on each one added a nice touch.

The only thing that WASN'T chocolate (gasp!) was the "Happy Father's Day" in regular buttercream. I wanted the words to show up, so that's why no chocolate was used, although the amount of non-chocolate was so minuscule that I don't think it took away from the overall chocolatey goodness of the cake.

Now to describe the taste: If heaven was chocolate, it would taste like that cake. =] Not to toot my own horn, but that was some darn good dessert right there. Definitely something I want to make again. :)