How to celebrate a birthday

"Mommy, I'm having my birthday soon. Tomorrow."

"No you aren't, your birthday isn't for a long time."

"How many sleeps?"

"Alot, over 300."

"We'll who is going to have a birthday then?"

"In our house, Daddy is next."

"He's going to have a party. We can invite all my friends. And they can all bring a cake." (note who's friends he plans to invite?)

"A cake?"

"Yes, it will be a cake party. Everyone has to bring a cake for Daddy."

Don't ask why, but we went with this idea. All the girls thought it was a hilarious idea for a party, while my husband, "Daddy", said, "Um, I'm in training right now."

Yes, we ignored him. :-)

Normally he requests black forest cake for his birthday. This year was a bit different: he asked for something involving chocolate and orange, but left the rest of the details up to me.

I settled on this: Decadent Chocolate Orange Cake.

I have to admit, I didn't like this cake. But I also am not a person who really likes chocolate and orange together, despite it being a classic combination which is supposed to marry so well together. Sorry, I just don't go crazy for it the way some people do.

And the name of the cake is very deceiving. It isn't a chocolate orange cake, it is an orange cake with a chocolate ganache. The orange in the cake comes from the rind of two oranges (I zested mine straight into the sugar instead of peeling, chopping, then adding to the sugar to puree) as well as orange marmalade both in the cake and in the filling. The filling itself is simply cream cheese, marmalade and a bit of sugar, which is then given a coating of the chocolate ganache.

I made one other change to this - I didn't use the pans specified, but instead used the square silicone pans I was given for Christmas. It meant I could not split the cakes in half to make four layers (the cakes baked up very lopsided and only careful work on my part resulted in a square cake that was not completely off balance,) but allowed me to have a nice square cake.

In the end, we had 6 cakes: my chocolate/orange cake, a banana chocolate chip cake, a triple chocolate torte (I need the recipe for this one), a lemon cake from a local bakery that I so want to visit, a black forest cheesecake and a caramel chocolate brownie cheesecake (which was so rich I actually could not eat it!)

Yes, there was alot of cake! And alot of giggling over the idea of a cake party. One has been requested by another adult for their birthday later this spring, and one adult as asked for a variation - a cookie party!

So the next time you are looking for a different idea for a celebration, ask a 4 year old what kind of party he thinks you should have. Just don't let him compile the guest list. :-)