a royal birthday cake...

the barking orders for a birthday cake this year were chocolate double cake with chocolate frosting.
simple enough, but i hate a plain cake with plain old frosting.

i almost never eat it unless i know it was fancied up by the baker, so.....

i bought a cake mix let my mind wander.

it called for 1 1/2 cups of water. ugh, how boring. so i had some creme fraiche on hand and used 3/4 c of that and the rest water. i followed the rest of the called for ingredients and baked as directed in 2 9 inch pans. it made for the most moistalicious cake.

then....

i thought about how good a cream cheese filling would be. so i used 1 brick of softened cream cheese, with 1/2 c of ganache frosting (recipe forthcoming) and 3/4 c powdered sugar. i put those in the blender and put them in a ziploc and froze it for a few minutes to firm it up.

the ganache..
first, might i bear my testimony of it?
okay, i love the gloss, the taste and the ease of cooking it, i love how i dream about all of the things it could go on. okay, done.

it is 2 parts chocolate to
1 part cream.
i used 2 cups of hershey's chocolate chips (milk chocolate)
and
1 cup heavy whipping cream.
stir with a whisk on medium heat until chocolate starts to get shiny. remove from heat and set aside.
{you can use this for cupcakes, just dip those pretty little tops in it, or a fondue dip also.}

to assemble:

cool your cakes and cut the tops off making a flat surface for the cakes to rest on top of one another without falling over.
you can see i put the cake on a square serving dish with sides so the ganache wouldn't spill over.
so, put your first cake down and clip the tip of the baggie you stored your cream cheese filling in. i piped this in a big circle and then spread it with the back of a spoon. add your second layer of cake on top of that.
{make sure both cake surfaces that were cut are facing each other. so the first cake should have the uncut surface as the side touching the plate, the bottom of the second cake should be the cut side so the top doesn't get crumbs everywhere.}
make sure the ganache isn't too hot to the touch but not too cool. about body temperature, dip your finger in to test {and lick your finger too ;)}
i spread the ganache starting in the middle of the cake, pouring it from the pan and working from the center to the edges, letting the ganache drizzle down the sides until it filled the corners of the plate. this was especially nice because it covered any crumbs or filling spills. i refrigerated it for a few minutes to help the ganache firm up a bit.

i fanned some strawberries by slicing them thin from bottom to top in 5 or 6 slices per strawberry. they sure looked pretty. and i thought this was a fabulous taste and something different. we served it with vanilla ice cream.