my chocolate lover

I call M my chocolate lover (hee hee). He loves chocolate. And yesterday was his birthday. We were both able to take the day off to enjoy it together. We ran errands (dr's appt for leftie, a stop at Target),


(my chocolate lover does not wish to be photographed)
ate an elegant lunch downtown

(I loved that chandelier)
watched An Education (please go see it, I found the trailer to be misleading. It's not as cheesy looking and esoteric as I thought it would be. It was actually quite good.)

And then I baked him a cake.

(I am a towering presence of chocolate)
It's become a birthday tradition. I offer to bake him whatever he wants for his birthday. Usually it's chocolate cake. I found an amazing recipe for one that was a white or yellow cake with a milk chocolate frosting. I wanted to make sure that was okay with him. But then he got to ruminating. Because I told him that the milk chocolate frosting is not a ganache frosting. Which is a frosting I've used more frequently in the past. And he decided that he wanted a cake with ganache. Because that's a fun word to say. So ganache it was. I followed this recipe to the letter (except I subbed a rice syrup that I found at Whole Foods instead of the corn syrup). It. Was. Amazing.


(I look innocent, but eat me and I will have you climbing the walls)
Probably should have doubled the recipe for the ganache. I couldn't help but sample it (again and again) as I was making it. While it was still warm and gooey it tasted like a really rich and heavy chocolate mousse (in the very best way). In fact, I might just make that as a dessert on it's own in the future. A-may-zing!

Anyways, I loved the ganache so much I would prefer more of it with the cake, which is not my normal reaction to frosting. But this isn't just frosting after all. It's a ganache. And it's a fun word to say. I just might have to get more supplies for another batch to go with the rest of the cake.

Recipe here.