Staying In With The Cake

The friends are the sweetest. They were away during the man's birthday and now that they're home, they still want to celebrate it with him. A chocolate-Guinness cake was baked and brought over to be shared. They lugged along presents too. Wow. A total surprise. We didn't expect the treat(s). The man was bowled over.

The cake was winning. The chocolate-Guinness cake combination was gorgeous. Dense, heavy, rich but not sweet, it was an immediate hit with all of us. Not that much Guinness was poured into the cake, but whatever was used, was discernible to the tastebuds. Lovely. Oh that color! It was love at first sight. I think nowadays when she bakes, she ruthlessly puts in sugar only a quarter of what the recipe calls for. Hurrah for us! The cream cheese frosting was tart and well...deliciously cheesy, lending a good contrast to the chocolate. Detected low sugar in the frosting too. Yay.

This year, the man didn't quite celebrate his birthday with a full cake. Certainly not any that are as gorgeous as this. We sang a little birthday song the traditional way, and blew out the single candle. The man was very touched. He's got such a sweet tooth; I don't bake at all, so it's awesome that the friends indulge him. The friends needn't rush off. Neither of us wanted to hang out at clubs, nor have other pressing social demands to fulfill. It's rare that we get to chill out at home. Broke out easy single malts to match the dessert. We downloaded 'Being Elmo', and ended the night with this feel-good docu-film that most of us are fairly familiar with while growing up.