The Happy Birthday post

I'm going to get alot of milage teasing my sister-in-law about this, but I'm sure she knows it is all in good fun.

It is her birthday tomorrow, but we were going to be seeing her Friday, when she would be going for the hike in the woods with the boys, all 3 of mine, plus hers, followed by some kind of diner at our home. Earlier in the week I had asked her what she would like for her birthday desert, basically giving her carte blanche to ask for whatever she would want. The last two years she has asked for my apple crumble, made with caramel sauce drizzled over the apples instead of regular sugar, and extra crumble.

This is where the teasing comes in.....

She asked for a McCain Deep and Delicious frozen cake.

Or a vanilla cake mix cake. With canned icing.

I couldn't do it! I just couldn't do it! (Though I did buy her a McCain cake to bring home.)

Instead I made brownies. Ooey, gooey, chocolatey, fudgy, rich brownies.

Which I topped with chocolate and caramel ice cream.

Then I made a ganache sauce to go over top of the ice cream, because obviously the brownies and ice cream needed more chocolate!

The brownie recipe was the recipe I usually make, found on the Kraft website, One Bowl Brownies. I have never included nuts in my brownies, mostly because I don't like them there, and these were no different. Though I did have to make one little change - I accidentally bought some good semi-sweet chocolate instead of unsweetened, so I just reduced the sugar a bit to make up for it. They still turned out the same, full of rich, chocolatey goodness.

The chocolate sauce I made by combining good quality milk chocolate chips with a touch of cream, which I melted together in the microwave for 30 seconds. I stirred them together until the sauce was smooth and glossy, for about a minute.

Added together with the ice cream, it was chocolate nirvana.

In the end I think she was satisfied with her birthday dessert, plus she got to bring home her favorite type of cake.