The happiest of birthdays

So, I absolutely love birthdays.  I've been lucky enough to find friends and family that love birthdays as much as I do.  My in-laws might love birthdays more than I do.  Naturally, I used birthdays as an excuse to experiment with new sweets.  Laurie, the greatest mother-in-law that has ever walked the face of this earth, celebrated her 55th last week.

Laurie loves peanut butter and chocolate.  Who doesn't, right?  I'm like Pavlov's dogs when I hear or smell peanut butter and chocolate.  Anyway, she also loved my cookie dough cupcakes.  I had to find a way to combine the two and make a cake out of it.

 

Success.  I whipped up a triple decker delight... the top and bottom layers were a dark chocolate cake.  The entire center layer was one big inch and a half thick disc of pure (eggless) peanut butter cookie dough.  Chunky, of course.  {ding!} Is your mouth watering yet?  To finish it off, I frosted it with peanut butter cream cheese frosting.  You better be salivating on your keyboard/phone/tablet.

 

Of course, to keep things pretty, I frosted the cake using the rose method.  I am really loving this way of frosting cakes.  It's super easy and quick, and virtually impossible to screw up.  And did I say how gosh darn pretty it looks?!

 

Anyway, I'll stop teasing you... here's the center of the cake.

 

 

The cake was only a 6 inch cake.... but it was probably about 5 inches tall.  There were 6 of us and there were still leftovers.  Everyone loved it, especially the birthday girl, Laurie.  Although my nurse sister-in-law may have to start doing some diabetes pre-screenings...

 

Stay sweet!