A Harvest Cake

While visiting our family in Orange County a couple weeks ago, I was perusing through my mother-in-law's Bon Appetite "best of" anniversary issue. I came across a recipe for "the best ever party cake". It was a beautiful, three layer cake. I decided I had to try it and decided I could make it for a church meeting I had last night. It took many hours, but here it is! I am so happy with it. I don't usually do cakes - at least not fancy ones, but since I have improved a bit on my piping and baking skills lately, I wanted to give this a try.

I must note that I made several crucial changes to the recipe. My dear hubby wasn't thrilled about the orange/chocolate theme they had going, so I did some substituting. The ganache filling, which was my favorite part, incidentally, was changed to a kahlua, espresso flavor rather than the orange flavoring the recipe called for. I made a brown butter, dark brown sugar buttercream instead of the orange buttercream it called for. I still want to go back and make their version (I did stick with the chocolate cake recipe), but this was mighty good. Very rich and decadent. Maybe too sweet for some lighter sweet eaters, but die hards like myself can't get enough.

I also had some fun with the decorations. I made some cute acorns with caramels and chocolate leaves with various colored candy melts. I also had to throw in my valhrona chocolate crunchy balls I just found at Surfas in L.A. (thanks for the tip, My Sweet and Saucy!).

Not a perfect cake, but perfect for me right now! Just enjoyed another piece! :)

Thanks for stopping by sweet readers!