Favorite Fudge Birthday Cake with Super Simple Chocolate Frosting, Ganache Glaze and Chips Ahoy Crunch

Boy am I glad that I was on maternity leave for both Isla and Emmett’s birthdays. Kids’ birthdays are no joke. I don’t feel like we celebrate more than the average family but when you are a little kid, birthdays are legitimately a BIG DEAL. And Emmett just turned five. FIVE! I can’t believe I’m the mother of a five year old. It really is bittersweet. I’m so proud of the little guy he is becoming but devastated that time is going by so fast.  

I’ve been letting the kids pick a birthday cake on Pinterest for me to recreate for their birthdays. I, of course, steer them away from the ones that are way out of my league in terms of difficulty. And thankfully, so far, so good. This year Emmett wanted a dinosaur cake.  He was so set on his plastic dinosaurs being part of it, he has been keeping them in the kitchen “cake” drawer ever since Christmas.  

The cake itself had to be chocolate.  I don’t feel like I’ve ever found a go-to chocolate cake, although the basic Hershey’s one is pretty close. But this cake may have changed all that. It was super tasty and very easy to make. I covered it in super simple chocolate frosting, a ganache glaze and chips ahoy crumbles.  Oh yeah, and dinosaurs. Even though there were a few steps involved, putting it all together was a breeze.  I’m pretty sure I could have pulled it off even if I was back at work - though I’m glad I didn’t have to.

I made the whole evening even easier on myself by making slow cooker corned beef with cabbage, carrots and potatoes for dinner.  You can find the recipe for that here.  I plated the corned beef and vegetables on a big platter and kept it warm in the oven until we were ready to eat. Perfect for a weeknight dinner.  Also, this allowed me to pay attention to the kids and get the low-down on Emmett’s big birthday at school instead of standing over the stove.

Emmett was pretty thrilled with his cake and his birthday in general. It was nice to see him so happy and excited. And most of all, grateful. He must have thanked me a hundred times for his cake, his dinner, his presents. I was super proud of my little man.

And the cake. The cake was awesome. Then again, it was covered in frosting, ganache and cookies. How could it not be? Paul said it tasted like Portillo’s chocolate cake.  Lest you think I would be offended, that is actually high praise around here. Portillo’s was our wedding cake and how we celebrated the birth of all of our children (there’s a Portillo’s directly across the street from Lutheran General Hospital).  No fancy cake for me. It’s Portillo’s all the way.

This cake would be great with no embellishments, just the cake and super simple frosting. Here’s how to do it with the ganache and cookie crumbles too.

Favorite Fudge Birthday Cake with Super Simple Chocolate Frosting, Ganache Glaze and Chips Ahoy Crunch

Make 1 Favorite Fudge Birthday Cake, just the cake part.  Recipe here.

I made ½ a recipe which worked perfectly in my 6” cake pans. I also made the cake ahead, wrapped each layer separately in saran wrap, then foil and froze them until the big day.

Make one batch of Super Simple Chocolate Frosting. Recipe here.

Again, I made ½ batch, enough to fill and frost my 6” cake.

Place about 16 (or 8 for a 6” cake) chips ahoy cookies in a plastic bag and crush them with a rolling pin.

When ready to assemble the cake. Place one cake layer on a plate, lazy susan or turntable, removing any dome off the top with a serrated knife. Repeat with the second layer.

Slather about 1 cup (½ cup for a 6” cake) of frosting in the center of the first layer and place the second layer on top.  

Now, crumb coat your cake by covering the top and sides with a very, very thin layer of frosting all over to seal in the crumbs.

Place cake in refrigerator for about 20 minutes for crumb coat to set.  

Remove cake from fridge, frost top and sides and place back in the fridge to set.

Meanwhile, make ganache. For a full-size cake (halve these amounts for a 6” cake), heat 4 oz heavy cream in a microwave of over a stovetop until simmering. Stir 4 ½ oz dark chocolate pieces (I used chopped baking chocolate) into cream and whisk until completely melted and ganache is shiny and smooth. Allow to cool to room temp.

Once ganache has cooled slightly but is still pourable consistency, take cake out of fridge and pour ganache on top, nudging some over the sides with a spatula for the drippy effect.

Coat with cookie crumbs and top with dinos. Viola!

Dead Simple: Parsley Sauce for Your Saint Patrick's Day Meal

Hi there. How are you? I'm having a hard time believing that March is around the corner. Where did the last few month go? I am totally looking forward to the days getting longer and longer and  it warming up around here.  Plus, we are all psyched that the next major Holiday (besides Emmett's birthday, as I am reminded EVERY.SINGLE.DAY) is Saint Patrick's Day!

Spring means mixing things up with evening trips to the park, more eating out (even though that has been scaled back by the arrival of this), and possible getting the grill out. But for the next few weeks it's business as usual around here.

My father-in-law, Paddy, and I take turns hosting Sunday dinner. It’s an informal affair, just Paul and I, the kids, Paddy and my brother-in-law, John.  Nothing fancy, more often than not, dinner is just what we would normally have.  But, it’s nice to sit down to a meal together, and it’s a part of the week that we all look forward to. Last week, Paddy and John did more than their fair share. They drove to our house so we wouldn’t have to get the kids bundled up AND they brought an Irish bacon. There really wasn’t much for me to do to make dinner happen.

We typically eat our Irish bacon (and corned beef for that matter) with Coleman’s mustard on the side.  But since I was only responsible for vegetables, I decided to make some parsley sauce to go with the bacon.  This sauce is a basic bechamel with chopped parsley and lemon juice mixed in. It goes great with bacon and would probably be nice with fish (fish Friday idea!) or to spruce up some simple steamed broccoli or spinach.

You can make this sauce in the time it takes to cook some carrots and cabbage on the stovetop. I will definitely be making it again with my corned beef on Saint Patrick’s Day. With some Coleman’s mustard on the side, of course.

Parsley Sauce

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
• 1 ½ cups whole milk
• Juice of ½ lemon
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• Salt to taste

Place butter and flour in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat.  I like to use a high quality salted Irish butter, such as Kerrygold, for this.  If you use salted butter, you won’t need to add much salt at the end.

Stir butter and flour together until if makes a homogenous paste and bubbles but does not brown, about 2 minutes.   

Pour milk in slowly and cook, whisking constantly, for 4 or 5 minutes, until sauce thickens.  I add milk a little at a time, keeping in mind that sauce will be slightly thicker when taken off the heat. You may or may not use all the milk.

Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice and parsley.

Season to taste.  

To say I love Irish bacon would be an understatement.  If you are looking for something to do with leftover Irish bacon, look no further. 

I've used it in all of these: 

Bacon and Pea Risotto

In soup with white beans

In split pea soup

Dublin Coddle

and, it makes a regular appearance at our house in fried rice, sandwiches, scrambled eggs, even biscuits, cornbread and scones. Bacon is my weeknight, breakfast, anytime hero.

Soda Bread Crumbs

My brother and his girlfriend have been visiting this week from Saint Martin and it has been so nice to catch up with them.  The kids especially love it when they are here. Every moment ends up being an opportunity to try to steal their attention and impress Uncle Mark and Aunt Jenn.  This state of affairs is, of course, fine with me and Paul.  Increasing the ratio of adults to little kids is always a good thing, especially when those adults are Mark and Jenn.

Mark and Jenn are both great cooks and have taught me much of what I know about cooking and feeding people. Their first night here I wasn’t sure how hungry everyone was going to be or what they would be up for. I ended up sort of paralyzed with indecision and without a dinner plan.  Fortunately, just before it was time to head to the airport, I decided to make some garlic bread crumbs out of the soda bread hanging out on the counter.  I figured, if we didn’t go out for dinner, I could use them to whip up a quick pasta dish to serve with a salad and grocery store rotisserie chicken.

I toasted the bread, whizzed it in my food processor with a few cloves of fresh garlic and toasted the whole lot in butter and olive oil on the stovetop. You know how people say that if you want to sell your house you should bake chocolate cookies? Well, I think you should make these bread crumbs.  They smell toasty, nutty, garlicy - like something delicious is in your future. When the bread crumbs were reasonably cool, I tossed them with grated Parmesan, minced parsley and lemon zest. Then I seasoned them with a tiny bit of sea salt, nutmeg and black pepper and headed to the airport.

We ended up using them to make this simple pasta dish with some fresh pasta.  But honestly, these would be good on anything. I’m thinking of making some more to use instead of panko for this Ina Garten recipe. Or as a topping for baked fish. I usually add nuts to this sort of thing but I found that the nuttiness of the soda bread provided what I was looking for and the texture was light and perfect.

Oh, and by the way. Turns out a simple pasta dish, rotisserie chicken and a big salad can be company worthy. It made the perfect family dinner that everyone could enjoy.  

Soda Bread Crumbs

• 5-7 pieces of soda bread, about 3 cups crumbs
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• Pinch of salt
• 1-2 tablespoons butter
• 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
• ¼ cup minced parsley
• Zest of one lemon
• ¼-⅓ cup grated Parmesan
• Sea salt, nutmeg and back pepper to taste

 Toast soda bread and add to food processor along with peeled garlic cloves and a pinch of salt. Pulse until the bread turns into coarse crumbles.

Add oil and butter to large frying pan and heat over medium high heat until butter is melted.

Add garlic-bread mixture and toast, stirring constantly until bread crumbs are fragrant and brown. I turn the heat down at the end since the crumbs can go from toasted to burnt easily.

When the crumbs have cooled add the parsley, lemon zest and Parmesan and stir thoroughly.

Season to taste with salt, pepper and nutmeg.