Patty Cake, Patty Cake

I had an amazing amount of fun creating in

my kitchen last week. I always seem to be out of

town on my dear friend Crystal's birthday and have

missed all her cute b-day parties as a result.

So I have been known to bake her the fanciest cake

that I can at the time to help make up for it.

My dad helped me make one for her awhile back that

was chocolate peppermint so I decided to stick with

such a creative flavor but now try to decorate it more

Crystal-like.

{I thought that I would document the process in case

I ever want to recreate this particular creation}

I started with melting vanilla meltables (bought at Roberts)

flavored each batch with peppermint extract, and then

poured them into parchment-lined-pam-sprayed pans

After being put in the fridge for a few minutes to cool

I flipped out the hardened mint mixture on a cutting board

and with the help of a ruler cut it into 1 in squares.

I then baked the cake following the buttermilk chocolate

cake recipe in "The Cake Doctor", filled it with

peppermint buttercream frosting that included

crushed peppermint candies, and then frosted the whole

thing with a dark chocolate peppermint ganache.

Using the extra ganache as glue I glued on the mint

squares in a retro looking checkerboard pattern.

Pictures of Crystal I took for a school project,

back in the day.

Great modeling skills.