A Decadent Birthday Cake

I love decorating cute little kids' cakes...but every once in a while, it's fun to make something a little bit more grown up. I've been eyeing this recipe from Sweetapolita for a while now...and yesterday, I got the chance to make it. She used pink food coloring to enhance the swiss meringue, but the cake was for a grown man, so I thought I'd lay off the pretty pink.

                                     

It's a dark chocolate layer cake with a strawberry swiss meringue frosting and a chocolate ganache topping. 

It's the first time I've made a swiss meringue frosting, and if you've never tried it, you need to. It's sweet, but not too sweet, and buttery. It's heavenly. I'll be making this for the next family birthday.

One more thing...Sweetapolita made the cake in three 6-inch pans...I opted for two 8-inch pans and four layers. This was an easy cake to make, but the swiss meringue was a bit tricky. It was definitely worth the work in the end!