Week 14: Triple-layer chocolate peanut butter cake, take 2

Back in week 6 I took on my first from-scratch cake.  Brett declared it his favorite cake, and requested it for his birthday.  Being the great mom that I am, I immediately agreed.  Not because I desperately wanted to eat this cake again...no, it was for Brett.  Brett also requested that both Batman & Spiderman be represented on his cake.  Hmm...okay, then.

Final result:

Brett regularly ponders what would happen if Batman & Spiderman got into a fight.  He has decided that Spiderman would win (because he's fast).  So I carefully positioned Spiderman so it'd look like he was kicking Batman off the cake.  Because, again, I'm a great mom.

I also carefully positioned the Batmobile to cover up a frosting tragedy...the glaze was a little too warm when I poured it over the cake, and the cream cheese frosting started to melt off one section.  The brilliance of my decorating prevented anyone from knowing.

Brett was very impressed with his final cake, as were my in-laws.

Lessons learned and recipe thoughts:

1. The first time I made this, I cooked the glaze in the microwave.  While it tasted just fine, it was a little too thick for pouring and spreading.  This time, I cooked it over a make-shift double-boiler (a glass mixing bowl placed over a pan of simmering water).  It had much better spreading consistency, and also prettier drips down the side of the cake.

2. The first time I made this, I refrigerated the cake for 30 minutes in between adding the frosting and pouring on the glaze.  I wanted to see what would happen if I skipped that this time.  Answer: the frosting melted.  Next time, I'll stick with refrigerating in between the two steps.

Check out my post from week 6 for the recipes.