Birthday Cake

When I make a cake for an occasion, it's usually one type of cake - a Mousse Cake. Raspberry, Mango, Peach, Lemon, Blueberry, White Chocolate, Dark Chocolate... I made a lot of different types of mousse cakes. Contrary to a popular belief that the mousse cakes are difficult to make, I find them easy, but time consuming. I remember I tried making my first mousse cake (lemon) after work. I made it, it turned out really good, but I do not want to have this experience ever again. It was hell... I piped the lady fingers and put the cake in the oven and started on the pastry cream. In the middle of doing that I had to remove those lady fingers while trying to continuously whisk the cream. Then I had to cool the pastry cream, cool the cake, juice the lemons, make the lemon curd, cool the curd, whip the cream, soften the gelatin, make the actual mouse, cut the cake, assemble the cake, cool the cake, pour some extra lemon curd over the cooled cake (if cake is not cooled, it's impossible to spread the curd on top)... And all of it in one night after 6 pm... Now I have my system. I make my cake and the lady fingers (if I use them) on one night, while the cake is baking I make a pastry cream (I still don't know whether I prefer a mousse with or without it) and I blend some fruit. The next day I only have to whip the cream, make the mousse and assemble the cake.

But this time my schedule got in the way. There was no way I could make a mousse cake (my heart was set on a really cool recipe for an apricot mousse cake) and still have a good night sleep, so I had to choose something else. This cake was a very unlikely birthday cake, but it turned out better than perfect. It turned out to be one of the best cakes I've ever tasted.

Carrot Cake