My First Birthday Cake

It's been FOREVER since I posted anything on here - shame on me! I will admit that the 12-16 hour days and full weekends I've been pulling at work for a project drove me to eat nothing but takeout, and, on the rare occasion I got off work early, there was a vodka and soda water calling my name (and trust me, it yells really loud).  But alas, the vodka and I had a talk and I explained that it just can't keep me from doing what I love, so - I'm back!

Okay about this picture above and this blog entry.  First - no, this is not the first birthday cake I've ever received.  Hell, my birthday's not even until January (January 9th to be exact and I do accept cash, drinks, shots and food, in no particular order).  This is, however, the first birthday cake I've ever made.  And naturally I couldn't do it same old boring way as everyone else (angel food! Whipped topping! Marble! SHUT UP YOU'RE BORING), so I had to find something complicated, difficult and fun to make.  See, a friend of mine at work that has been TORTURED with these same hours as me turned 30 today. 30! That's a big milestone! And he spent his 30th birthday working 7 hours with me.  SEVEN HOURS AT WORK ON A WEEKEND AND HIS 30TH BIRTHDAY. Don't you feel sorry for him already?  He probably deserves a cake every day for putting up with me an average of 60-70 hours a week, but fuck it - this girl only makes cakes on special occasions.  So I set out to make my very first birthday cake.  It didn't take me long to find the "the one."  I few searches here and there, and next thing I knew there she was staring at me...'Peanut Butter and Chocolate Explosion Pancakes.'  

Here's the thing about me and sweets.  I like them fine and will never complain if you'd like to buy your way into my heart with some delicious melt-in-your-mouth brownies or something like that, but I'm a salty foods girl.  Give me some chips and french onion dip over cookies or ice cream any day of the week!  But this wasn't about me (I already told you that's not till January 9th), so I set off to make this damn (pan)cake.  

The ingredients are pretty straight forward.  But what the recipe doesn't list is milk or water.  FOR THE LOVA GOD YOU'LL NEED SOMETHING TO WASH IT DOWN!  Honestly, anything with fudge, caramel, 2 bags of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, cocoa and chocolate frosting is going to be rich and require massive amounts of milk or water.

So you make a bunch of pancakes and layer them pancake-frosting-pancake-frosting...you get the idea.  Let me just say, as someone who had never actually made pancakes before, that shit is hard!  The perfectionist in me had some REALLY angry words with the batter that fell off as I tried to flip the damn things.  But alas, they weren't perfect but they got the job done.

You gotta let the pancake-frosting layers set in the fridge for at least an hour - in my case it was overnight.  All the toppings happen before you serve it.

Once your pan(cake) is set, put whatever the hell you love on it!  I followed the recipe pretty closely, chopping up a lot of Reese's Pieces Peanut Butter Cups.  I also drizzled and caramel, fudge and sprinkled those little red sugar crystal things on top to make it look pretty.  

30 candles later, and BAM - I'd made my first birthday cake!  

Here is the link to recipe on this FANTASTIC site called Tablespoon - 

http://www.tablespoon.com/recipes/peanut-butter-chocolate-explosion-pancakes-recipe/1/

Happy eating and enjoy! Xoxo