Opera cake is my husband Tyler’s favorite cake. It is what I call a fancy cake. It is the kind of cake that he learned to make in culinary school in a big tidy professional kitchen. The kind of cake that is leavened with whipped egg whites and requires a candy thermometer to make the frosting. The kind of cake I love to eat at a fancy patisserie, but was a intimidated to make at home. But I am the kind of person who likes to bake you a cake on your birthday. The kind of a person who thinks birthdays are a big deal and likes to make a fuss.

For the past 14 years I have spent this week in NYC setting up for, exhibiting in or walking the National Stationery Show. This meant that I was never around to make a birthday cake for Tyler. He never minded and I was off the hook from whipping all those egg whites and using a candy thermometer. Until this year. This year I am staying home to smooch on this little fella and bake birthday cakes. I used this recipe for Opera Cake and would do so again. The Iron Chef decoration was at the request of my seven and three year old sons, who thought it would be perfect because “dad loves food” and to us he is an Iron Chef. I guess that would make me his sous chef and after making this cake I feel better equipped for the task.

All photos by Ebony via Instagram

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Tags: cooking

This entry was posted on Monday, May 21st, 2012 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Eat & Drink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.