Ed's Designer Chocolate Birthday Cake

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My husband's birthday is right around Thanksgiving.  I couldn't get him to stick a candle in a piece of pumpkin pie and call it a birthday pie.  Can't blame him.  So, many years ago I asked what he'd like his birthday treat to be and he said a chocolate cake.  I've been making the cake for years, but as soon as the kids got old enough I got them involved.  Up till now it's been mostly helping.  This year though my daughter took the project on.  She asked if she could make a designer gourmet cake.  After just a couple suggestions by me for instance it had to be made with things her father liked and steering her back to the fact that this had to be a chocolate cake she did well.

She got out pen and paper and drew out a sketch like she was building a skyscraper and it was her blueprint.  The cake would be chocolate with peanut butter chips baked in.  Then there would be 3 layers of peanut butter fudge.  The whole thing would be coated with a chocolate ganache frosting and pressed into that would be toffee bits.  My husband isn't a big dessert eater.  His main complaint when he has dessert is "it's too sweet."  I didn't know what he was going to think of this cake, but knowing his daughter made it I knew he would be a good sport.

Chocolate Ganache frosting with toffee bits pressed on.

He decided he wanted his cake a day early as to not have to eat a whole chocolate cake practically by himself.  This way he could share it with all who came for Thanksgiving.  This turned out to not be such a good idea for him or me.  Everyone wanted a piece of his beautiful cake.  No one wanted a piece of the pumpkin pie I had baked.
Everyone dove in so heartily into this cake that I barely got a picture before it was all gone!

As you can see there was only 1/4 of the cake left before I realized I wanted to get a picture.

Here you can see the peanut butter fudge layers and the peanut butter chips.

Here's the peanut butter fudge recipe.  My daughter did not chill the peanut butter fudge.  My daughter laid out a piece of plastic wrap and using a rolling pin rolled out some of the fudge.  Using the cake pan as a pattern we then carefully cut away the excess fudge making it the size of the cake round.  Being careful not to cut the plastic wrap.  Picking up the plastic wrap she flipped the fudge layer down on to cake layer.  Then peeled off the plastic wrap and repeated 2 more times.

For the frosting I've been using Mrs. Milman's recipe the last few years.  I hesitate to share it even though delicious, but I've had problems with it every year.  There is even a video where Mrs. Milman talks about how easy it is to make.  My problem is getting it firm enough to frost a cake.  After stirring it for hours in the fridge I ended up leaving the frosting in the fridge overnight.  I figured if it got too hard to spread we'd deal with it in the morning.  Turns out it was perfect spreading consistency.  So, before I call it quits on this recipe I'm going to try making it the day before instead of anxiously waiting for it to firm up the day of.