Recipes: February 2005 Archives

Whew. Totally behind in postings. I think it has something to do with the mini crisis that hit me when I turned 29, that, and the hangover that followed. So now that I've recovered (at least physically if not mentally), I wanted to share my Valentine's Day adventure. On Sunday and Monday I attempted, for the first time ever, to make a cake--and not one from the box.  Of course, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to make what seemed like the most complicated recipe ever: the Black Pearl Layer Cake from Epicurious.com. It involves a ginger-wasabi ganache, a homemade vanilla-ginger syrup, three layers of chocolate goodness, plus a ginger whipped cream frosting.

I wanted to make this cake for two reasons. The first could be construed as selfish: I wanted my cooking whiz of a husband to respect my creativity and talent in the kitchen. The second was, of course, that I wanted to make him something--instead of buying something--to counter the overly commercial nature of the manufactured holiday.  I hadn't considered that to make the cake I'd have to buy a few things, actually a lot of things, more than $60 worth of things in all. Yes, the pressure heated up a bit after my trip to Whole Foods. Would you believe that all $60 worth of ingredients fit into one bag? This is not a cake I wanted to mess up.