after

So we had a party last weekend and it was pretty great.  A little tame, really, but that's what you get with a house full of family.  And sometimes tame is good.  There were streamers and music.  We ate "tacos." which is what my man's family calls something that I would be more inclined to term "make your own burritos."

And we ate cake.  Specifically, Sour Cream-Chocolate Cake With Peanut Butter-Cream Cheese Frosting and Chocolate-Peanut Butter Ganache.  So, a really healthy cake.  It was my man's birthday party, though, and he should have nice things--at least once a year.

The recipe took awhile but was pretty dang easy.

All the pieces fit together nicely, and the end result was killer.  Even if you're a layer cake novice, like me, you can bake this cake.  Just don't come crying to me when you then proceed to eat the entire thing in one sitting.  On Smitten Kitchen, Deb cautions that this super-rich cake should be served in extra-thin slices.  For whatever it's worth, the "normal" size pieces I served seemed to go over just fine.

Of course, I don't have a gorgeous "after" picture to share.  We went from candles to cutting pretty quickly.  After a few minutes, things looked a bit like this.

You get the idea, though, right?

I made a few paper things for the party, too.  If you squint at the corner of the cake picture above, you can see one of them, a badge I made for the birthday boy.  I started out with some directions from Jessica at How About Orange but ended up making something significantly bigger than the "mini medallion" she gives the dimensions for.

I did struggle a little bit getting the whole thing glued together.  I ended up using a combination of rubber cement, tacky glue, and packing tape.  If I had it to over again, though, I'd probably just use some good double-sided tape.  Although, I don't think even that would overcome what I found to be the only real design flaw of the thing, a funny little seam in the paper.

And, no, that's not such a big deal.  I just don't like it when seams show.  I thought the thing turned out well enough in the end.  Our six-year-old nephew agreed.  "Hey," he said to his uncle, "nice badge."

And my partner-in-crime rocked it all night, which is way longer than he would've worn the tin foil crown I really wanted to make for him...