Ryan’s Birthday Wish
One thing that really has me puzzled is how my children can keep having birthdays and getting older while I really don’t think I’ve gotten older. The pages on the calendar keep turning and I guess I celebrate my birthday once a year like they do, but they seem to be growing older (and taller) much, much quicker than I do. I don’t feel like I could possibly be 11 years older than I was when my youngest child was born!
This week was Ryan’s 11th birthday so of course he got to choose his meal and his cake. His meal was homemade pizza which Nick and I have down to a science at this point. Nick makes the dough and sauce and gets all the toppings ready before I get home from work, and I spend the next 2 hours making pizza for everyone.
The cake, though, took a little bit more work. About 5 years ago, Austin “designed” his own cake (which you’ll have to wait until March to find out about), and that cake is known in our house as “Austin’s Chocolate Cake.” Ever since then, Ryan has wanted to have a “Ryan Cake” and has challenged me to make a cookie cake. Not a cookie that we put candles in, but a chocolate chip cookie and a chocolate cake merged deliciously together.
The first year I tried to incorporate cookies into the cake itself by dropping cookie dough into the cake batter and baking. That was just weird. The cookie dough pieces sunk to the bottom of the pan (of course) and it really didn’t look or taste very good. So last year I tried making a giant cookie and putting it between the layers. The problem with that was the cookie was too hard and I couldn’t cut through it. Not pretty.
So this year, I made a bigger cookie and cut out a circle the size of the cake, thereby avoiding the hard edges of the cookie. Then I cut it in wedges before putting it between the cake layers.
This time it worked! Beautifully! I don’t think I needed to pre-cut the cookie into wedges, I just need to make sure it’s not over cooked.
And I think the quest for Ryan’s cake is complete. It was interesting to have the cookie in the middle like that, but it really made for a very rich cake (so cut small pieces).
Happy Birthday, Ryan! Made for you with love, I present…
“Ryan’s Chocolate Cookie Cake”
Recipes | greengrassliving | 
September 20, 2008 10:19 am
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