birthday cake and sugar coma

Yesterday was my birthday. I don't get terribly excited about my birthday because I don't see the fuss in it. [Especially because 19 is quite possibly the most useless age you could turn]. Just want to see a few good friends, my family, and take it easy for the day. I pretty much got my wish. Family visited during the day, phonecalls and facebook messages of well-wishes, a few friends came over at night to "surprise me" with flowers and entertaining conversation. It was more than I could have asked for.

Oh, and cake.

Lots of cake.

I do love cake.

Delicious, rich, creamy, cake.

Mom came down to Cville yesterday with Yusra to take Noosh and I out to lunch [and give me lots of new clothes that I now won't be able to fit into after yesterday's cakefest]. She brought with her a dense, decadent, chocolate truffle cake. And some whipped cream to go with it.

Now, back when I was younger, chocolate truffle cake was my favorite kind of cake. Which is a bit odd for an 11-year old, right? This really rich, dark chocolate, almost bitter cake. But I couldn't get enough of it. And I've been asking for one for a few years now, and mom keeps trying other new recipes [which have, admittedly, turned out to be delicious, especially last year's double chocolate cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Can you tell I'm obsessed with chocolate?]. But this year she granted my wish. And it was delicious.

Yum.

Love.

But no birthday is complete without ANOTHER cake, right?

Well, mine isn't, anyway.

Farnoosh had been telling me for a while that she really wanted to bake my birthday cake. Which made me feel extremely honored, as she doesn't really enjoy cooking or baking in the least and wasn't totally sure what she was getting into by making a cake from scratch.

It was a long process. Lots of sweat and tears.

Well, not really the tears. But a bit of stress. Frosting falling all over the carpet, not being able to slice the cake properly, cake falling apart, mess everywhere.

But in the end, we got it together.

And gorgeous, if I do say so myself. I helped Noosh out with the baking part, but she wouldn't even let me watch her decorate it.

Well worth the wait, though.

Ugh. So pretty. And DELICIOUS. Chocolate brownie cake with espresso filling and espresso mascarpone frosting. Garnished with toffee bits, strawberries, and dark chocolate shards.

I pretty much died of sugar coma. Legit.

I woke up this morning with a headache. So...no more sugar for a while.

[We'll see how long that lasts].