Half of a Cake for a Half Birthday

Last year, Kristi Lonheim, a fellow Slicer, commented on a Facebook post I shared about Ari’s half birthday.

Last year, I created a granola bar tree on Ari’s half birthday.

And so began the idea for making half of a cake for Ari’s half birthday.

Several weeks ago, I floated the idea of half of a cake to Ari. He told me he wanted chocolate cake (doable), cream cheese icing (doable), and it should be a drip cake (WHAAAAAAT?!?!?). After a momentary panic, I reached out to my next-door neighbor, who has fabulous decorating skills, and asked her for help. She suggested a chocolate ganache drip cake. After going down the Google rabbit hole for chocolate ganache drip cakes, I settled on a recipe. I considered buying a turntable, but landed up only purchasing a squeeze bottle instead.

This morning, as planned, Ari and I started backing at 7:00 a.m. Here’s a peek at our cake baking and decorating:

Whisking eggs and sugar while still in pajamas.

By 7:31 a.m., the cake was in the oven.

A 10-minute cool was necessary before removing the cake from the springform pan.

It took me longer than expected to get the cake out of the springform pan. Eventually, I got the cake out in tact so it could cool on a wire rack for 90 minutes while the homeschool day began. (Yeah, we started late because, well, I’m human.)

By 10 a.m., Isabelle was readng and Ari and I were making cream cheese frosting.

Once the crumbcoat was applied, Ari sampled some of the frosting. (It’s really good.)

Ari asked to decorate the cake with the ganache. And so he did. He was a little heavy handed.

We had a TON of leftover ganache. I was preoccupied with an appointment that began at 12:45 p.m. that I completely lost sight of the fact that we were supposed to cover the top of the cake with the rest of the ganache. Alas, it’s down the drain now so the finished cake looks like this. It looks like it was made by someone who is 5.5 years old, doesn’t it? (I think it’s perfect.)

We will celebrate tonight with buttermilk-brined roast chicken, green beans, and french fries. (Ari is hit-or-miss with green beans, but the rest was requested.) Then, we’ll devour half of a cake in honor of Ari’s half birthday. I cannot wait!

Head over to Two Writing Teachers for more slice of life stories.

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