Birthday Cake!

This is the story of the birthday cake that almost wasn’t!

My first born “baby” turned 24 yesterday.  Where does the time go?!  I decided to make her an awesome birthday cake this year, something rich and decadent!  You see, she has lost 80 pounds over the past 10 months following Weight Watchers on line and I am so proud of her.  She had told me in advance she was taking her birthday “off” from tracking and would welcome whatever cake came her way!  I set my sights on a 4 layer pink ombre cake with swiss buttercream rosettes.   However, the diet devil had other plans!

It all started on Saturday evening when I carefully prepared a coconut batter, divided it in four and colored each one a gradual shade of pink.  I baked them off and set them on the counter to cool.  The plan was to get up early mix up the swiss buttercream and have it all decorated bright and early.  It was going to be beautiful!

Fast forward to about, say 1 AM, when I hear “No Tripper, bad dog”!  Opening one eye I call out to Samantha asking what he was in to.  You guessed it….Marlie’s cake.  He had eaten half the top layer.  So much for planning ahead.  I was just too tired to care at that point and went back to sleep.

Birthday Cake Take Two…..

Instead of getting up early to decorate the cake I was up early and heading to grocery store to buy a cake mix.  I just didn’t have the time to go through the scratch process.  I doctored it up, adding coconut milk and toasted coconut and again divided the batter up and colored each one.  I baked them off and set them out to cool.  Since we are heading out to run errands, we took the dogs with us!

As soon as I got home I prepared the frosting and set about decorating the cake.  I knew right off the bat I was rushing, which is never good when you are baking.  To make a long story short….the icing would not stick, the layers started to slide apart, and eventually the layers just started to crumble under my careless  spatula.  The entire thing ended up in one big pile of cake chunks and buttercream!  To say I wanted to curl up and cry right then and there was an understatement.

It didn’t help that in between trying to get the cake ready I had to bake 1 dozen hamburg rolls, 6 sausage rolls, prepare a potato salad and a huge jug of passionfruit ice tea lemonade (which also ended up half on the floor)!

I looked at Marlie and apologized profusely.  She laughed.  I didn’t.  I announced my decision to never bake again!  (Which lasted for all of 10 minutes!)  I declared it was the diet devil that simply did not want Marlie to have this cake!

So, while I really wanted to go to bed and pull the covers up over my head, I didn’t want to disappointment my daughter and did what I should have done in the first place.  Make The Cox family birthday cake.  3 ingredients, 5 minutes, and loved by all!  Not to mention low(ish) fat!  I took a few minutes to laugh at myself, took stock of the day and put things in perspective!

Birthday Cake Take Three!

I will add, I had my mom assemble this when she arrived.  I just did not want to see another cake up close and personal!  Goodness only knows what I could have done to it.

I tub of frozen whipped topping (we used light), a prepared angel food cake, and 4 chocolate bars of your choice.  We have used crispy crunch, orange aero, regular aero, and kitkat which is what we used for this cake.

Crush the chocolate bars into little bits.

Fold these into the whipped topping.

Cut the angel food cake in half.

Spread a layer of cool whip mixture between the layers.

Use the rest to cover the entire cake.

So simple, yet so good.

Everyone fights for the extra “globs” of whipped topping and chocolate that collect in the centre.

In the end it turned out to be a very Happy Birthday for Marlie!  I think she was secretly happy she was able to enjoy a yummy, familiar birthday cake without breaking the Weight Watchers points bank!

Happy Birthday Marlie!  I promise, less drama in the kitchen next year!

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