To: Alyssa Love, Martha

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake with Caramel Butter cream Frosting, go ahead, read on. I swear this will be my last post with a birthday recipe. Most people that know me well, know that I don't like my birthday, but this blog is really suggesting otherwise. I suppose I can change my birthday views if it means lots of delicious treats! I had an awesome weekend in Milwaukee which started with some much anticipated swimming at Gregory and Dino's place in the 'Dream Pool'. Once I was thoroughly pruned it was time to get baking. I had decided on Martha's Devil's food cake with a caramel butter cream frosting, YUM! This was another time consuming recipe, totally worth it, and not so tricky when you have the bakeologist at your side guiding the way. The hardest part of the cake was sifting all the flour, but Dino did most of that for me. I really need to look into some sort of electric sifter....

I was a little nervous about the frosting since it started with making caramel from scratch. It was pretty easy, you just really have to keep your eye on it. I was up for the challenge and was excited to use a recipe from my new Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book (Thanks Gregory!). The combination of the light chocolaty cake and the rich caramel frosting was to die for (the 6 sticks of butter probably didn't hurt either). Luckily it was a layer cake which means we had some excess cake from evening out the layers that we could taste test in the frosting. If not for that, you better believe there would have been some missing pieces before my parents arrived the next day for the b-day celebration!

I also have to take a second to give 2 thumbs up to the Riverwalk Brewery Tour. It was an extremely fun way to spend an afternoon with the fam, drinking some quality beer, cruising down the river, and learning a bit about the micro-brew process. I don't have a photo, but I think I was also the best 'Shirley' that Lakefront Brewery has ever seen. If you have ever done the tour you are familiar with the 'Laverne & Shirley' portion of the tour. If you want an idea check this out, pay close attention around 52 seconds.

The Trifecta