Aaron's birthday is today. The past few years, he has always requested a "non-traditional" or "stunt" cake. I am a solid baker, no doubt, but the cakes I bake for his birthday always end in disaster and near-tears. Also, it doesn't help that it is August and a 350F oven doesn't go well with the 90 degree ambient temperature.Remember the ice cream cone cupcakes? Oh right, I had to destroy all photo-documentation, it was so horrific and demoralizing. There was also the giant cupcake. Which tasted great, but was big, lopsided and bulky. (The smoke alarm-inducing burning of cake batter wasn't evident in the finished product, thankfully.)
This year, Aaron has asked for a Smith Island Cake.
Smith Island is the only inhabited island off the coast of Maryland in the Chesapeake Bay. They have their own cake. Last year, Maryland made it the official state dessert--only two other states have one (MA & SD)--and it goes well with their state drink, milk. Smith Island Cake traditionally has 8-12 thin layers of yellow cake with some sort of chocolate goo frosting, and in this case, crushed frozen peanut butter cups between the layers.
This is what it is supposed to look like (but with PB cup bits in between):
I'm scared. Things could get ugly. [correction: things did get ugly. There was even a frosting emergency.]
Happy birthday, Aaronosaurus!
The many thin layers of the Smith Island Cake:
Chocolate goo frosting and crushed PB cups between each layer. The crushed PB cups looked like ground meat to me:
Finished product. Those are mini-PB cups on top. Note the chocolate goo sliding into pools along the side of the cake. Not pretty.
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