Chris’s birthday–the Cake

I always make whatever the birthday boy requests for their cake (and their dinner). I asked Chris what he wanted this year, and he chose a milk chocolate cheesecake from Cook’s Country. (Unfortunately, this is not one of their free recipes.) It isn’t a difficult recipe, but it bakes really low, so it takes a while to bake and then needs to cool for 8 hours or up to 4 days. (I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really feeling like making a cake yesterday, but it’s for my sweet Christopher.)

Here’s what it looked like out of the refrigerator this morning:

Looks yummy, but not quite fancy enough for a birthday cake.

I am dressing it up (not that it isn’t delicious enough on its own) with some Solo Cherry Filling. I don’t know if you have ever used any of their products, but their fillings are delicious–I love the pecan, apricot, raspberry, cherry, and poppy seed. They include a recipe for poppy seed cake on the can and it is FANTASTIC. You can use these to dress up a frozen Sara Lee pound cake (I like to cut it into 4 layers and use the pecan and apricot fillings) and whip up a quick chocolate ganache (like the one below), and you will look like a ROCK STAR.

Look for recipes on the back side of the label–they are fantastic.

I used a paring knife to loosen the cake from the pan, and then my trusty old thin bladed spatula to get it out of the spring form pan and onto the cake plate. The crust is made with Oreo cookies and it’s a little crumbly. (This was early this morning and you can see my GIANT tumbler of coffee.)

I got it onto the cake plate with no mishaps.

I spread the cherry filling (I used the whole can) on the cake and put it back in the refrigerator to chill for the next step…

Cake is ready to go into the fridge for an hour.

I let it chill for about an hour, and then I made a sour cream dark chocolate ganache/frosting. Take six ounces of semi-sweet (or darker–I used a high percentage cacao chocolate) and melt it in the microwave for 90 seconds on full power. (I always use my handy kitchen scale to weigh my chocolate for recipes–we bought this one originally for a science fair project.)

Stir the chocolate until completely smooth and add 1/2 cup of full fat sour cream and stir until thoroughly combined.

I used a star tip for my disposable pastry bag and piped stars around the outside edge.

I used this ganache frosting because I thought it would complement the flavors in the cake, and add some more deep chocolate oomph, without a lot of additional sweetness. The cake is now safely in the refrigerator waiting to be devoured.