camera phone pics of a fantastic birthday cake.

I know, I know. Sorry. And for you childless folks who probably think I haven't been posting because I have a baby now, well that's a good bit of it (dang kid just keeps wanting to eat and wear fresh diapers). But I also have lots of projects going on! I'm working on a little vegan zine that will be southern-themed, and I'm also helping put together a big veg fest in Atlanta. Good stuff! I've been happily reading the Vegan MoFo blogs this month, and a little relieved to not be participating this year.

I could kick myself for not getting a good picture of Ken's birthday cake from last month. It turned out pretty cool. I wanted to take all of his favorite desserts and make them into a cake. Here's my profesh work-up:

For the top chocolate chip cookie layer, I used the chocolate chip cookie bar recipe from How It All Vegan. I figured a bar would be sturdier than one of my favorite cookie recipes. This layer came out perfect. The middle layer is store bought vanilla soy ice cream, which I melted down to soft serve texture an smoothed into a parchment lined cake pan. I could have cut and smoothed this layer to be uniform, but I kind of like the drapey appearance it took on from the folded parchment.

The bottom layer is brownie. All of the brownie recipes I have make a softer, fudgey brownie, and there ain't nothing wrong with that. However. A soft brownie wouldn't be able to hold the weight of another layer on top of it, so I went with the boxed brownie mix from Cherrybrook Kitchen. It produces a more cake-like brownie, and it was perfect for this situation. In between each layer was a smear of vegan cream cheese frosting, and I also piped some of that good stuff on the top.

Overall I am really happy with how this came out! My only complaint is the texture of the cookie and brownie when having to keep the ice cream cold in the freezer. In order to keep the ice cream for melting the whole thing needed to stay cold, which made for a slightly tough cookie and brownie. But Ken loved it, so that's all that matters to me.