Chocolate Covered Goodness!

Sometimes it seems surreal, but almost a decade ago, I met my absolute best friend. We weren't exactly friends at first, but one fateful weekend in our old sorority house, when everyone else had gone home for a break, Gen and I had no choice but to bond. Since then we've done practically everything together. (You know, except for the fact that she has a husband and a kid now, but that's besides the point.) 

Anyway, two weeks ago I got to celebrate Gen's 27th birthday with her. How better to do so than with an epic cake and some new Jessica Simpson shoes! If you don't know me, I LOVE shoes! Evan thinks I have a problem. Maybe I do, but I love the fact that Gen and I wear the same size! 

Nicole, Gen and me in our FAB shoes!
We all love shoes and share excellent taste,
if I do say so myself! :) 

While putting on our dancing shoes and hitting up our favorite places in Buckhead was fun, the cake definitely deserves a mention! I usually try to surprise people, but I pretty much run everything by Gen, so why should this time be any different? I asked her what kind of cake she wanted. She said "chocolate with strawberries. Nothing too fancy."

You really want me to do something simple? I didn't think so! I took her idea and I ran with it.

I knew I wanted to do something with strawberries in the middle and I knew I wanted to layer it a little. Kinda like a trifle, but not really. I started with the basic chocolate cake (2 of them actually) and baked them in the awesome 9x square pans my mom just bought me (thanks mom!). After they cooled, I sliced them and put a thin layer of cream cheese icing on the first layer. Then I put a layer of strawberries on top of that.

A note about the strawberries: I cut them up, sprinkled them with sugar and let them sit for a while. When I say I sprinkled them, that is a lie...I actually poured sugar on them, but I suggest just sprinkling because pouring lead to a massive mess later.

After the strawberries I added a layer of homemade cream cheese-based whipped cream. This stuff was AMAZING! I can't even pretend to be humble about this. It was a total success. You blend the cream cheese and sugar together with my secret ingredient: 2 teaspoons of ALMOND EXTRACT. My Nana is probably fussing at me from Heaven because she believed religiously in vanilla extract and would NEVER have put cream cheese in her whipped cream, but let me tell you...this was a whole new ball game, Nana...you would have been proud. Whip in the heavy whipping cream until it makes a stiff peak. Layer that on top of the strawberries. Add another layer of cake, icing, strawberries and whipped cream. One more layer of cake and you're finished with the inside of the cake.

Stick it in the freezer for a minute while you mix the fondant. I set some aside once it was mixed and left it white. Then I mixed up the color for the rest of it. I was trying to make red, but unfortunately I mixed pink in there instead. Fortunately it ended up looking really pretty so I decided not to freak out about it. Later. I did freak a little at the time and my hands were stained pink for quite some time.

With the leftover white fondant, I did something that most people would call...obsessive. I rolled it all into little tiny balls to look like pearls. :) Pearls make everything classier!

Once the cake was cooled and delicious looking, I covered it with the same cream cheese icing and then rolled out the fondant and placed it over top. Then I stuck it back in the freezer. For good measure. And to solidify its perfection.

While that was going on, I decided to cover some strawberries in chocolate and drizzle with white chocolate on top. Then I did that on the cake too. Top it off with the strawberries and add the pearls at the bottom and voila! You've got a masterpiece for your mouth. Delicious!

Happy Birthday, bestie! So happy we've been friends for so long! You're the best!