Dragonball Birthday Cake

Last week, my wonderful boyfriend turned 27 years old (I know, I'm dating an old man). Being a good girlfriend, I scoured the mall looking for the perfect nerdy gift for my nerdy man. This is an unpopular thing to say, but I love shopping for gifts for people. It's fun to think about what they would like and give them something they will appreciate. Shopping for geeks is actually easier than shopping for non-geeks in my opinion because you always have a good starting point. My biggest obstacle was figuring out what he already owned. But, with some searching (and possibly getting distracted by all of the nerdy stuff I liked), I found a gift that he loved. Success!

Being a cooking fanatic, I would be remiss in my girlfriend duties if I didn't make him some sort of birthday treat. I claimed the task of making his birthday cake. I wanted it to be special, one that was tailored to what he would like. When I'm designing a recipe for someone, I go full Sherlock Holmes, replaying conversations in my head and thinking about past meals I have shared with them to figure out the exact flavor combination that will make the person happy. Jay is a man of simple taste, which makes my job both easier and more difficult. Easier because I don't have to hunt down any exotic ingredients or learn any finicky new techniques, more difficult because simple is hard to make special and personalized. Let the over-analysis begin! I knew I wanted to start with a yellow cake, as he mentioned that it was a favorite of his. I had mentioned Boston Cream Pie at some point and he had said he'd never had it, but it sounded good (he has been deprived). So, I decided to do a yellow cake with a custard filling similar to a Boston Cream. Now the topping. He prefers white chocolate over dark, and a previous conversation had revealed that he loves coffee ice cream. White chocolate espresso ganache would go perfectly with the vanilla cake and custard. And finally, a personal touch. Dragonballs. In the Dragonball world. when you gather all seven Dragonballs, you get to make a wish, so they're the perfect topping for a birthday cake. Plus they're little yellow orbs with stars on them, talk about easy. What should these orbs be made of? Peanut butter dipped in chocolate. One of the best combinations in the dessert world.

Delicious level: 9001

The cake was loved by everyone who tried it, including the one person I most wanted to please, Jay. I'm so happy that I have him in my life and I get to celebrate moments like this with him.

So, once I had used my powers of deductive reasoning to detemine the perfect cake (this is what they teach you in college, kids), I set about finding my recipes. I'm not going to just use any old yellow cake recipe for this, I used the "perfected" yellow cake recipe from Pinterest. This is a very specific recipe and I followed it to the letter. The resulting cake was a Goldilocks texture, not dense, but not so light that I was worried about it collapsing. The flavor was the perfect amount of sweetness to go with the custard. This recipe made a huge mess in my kitchen, but if you want to put in the effort, it makes a really good cake.

Yellow Cake Recipe

The custard and ganache came from this Boston Cream recipe, but of course I altered it as I always do. The custard is probably my favorite part of this cake, it's the perfect texture and the vanilla flavor comes through nicely.

Boston Cream Recipe

Sprinkles of Kim:
-Cook the mixture until it thickens. Mine went from liquid to thick pudding texture so fast I thought I had messed something up, but that's actually supposed to happen
-Because I only have a small blender, I whipped the cream separately and folded it into the custard.
-For the ganache, I used white chocolate and put in a couple teaspoons of espresso powder instead of vanilla. It turned out a bit thi, so if I make it again, I'll cook it longer to hopefully make it thicken a bit more.

And finally, the Dragonballs. These little orbs of happiness will not last long at any gathering. If you've ever had buckeye balls, they're basically that. So good.

Peanut Butter Truffles

Sprinkles of Kim
-Don't bother measuring the powdered sugar, just add and mix until you can form it into a ball that you can handle without it sticking to your hands
-Keep the peanut butter balls in the freezer up until right before you dip them. The colder they are, the less likely they are to melt in the chocolate
-If it's warm and humid in your kitchen (it's August in Texas, warm and humid is currently my life), put the dipped truffles in the fridge to set the chocolate
-I used white chocolate with yellow food coloring to get the yellow, and the stars are star-shaped sprinkles

Even if it's something simple, it can still be incredible. Okay that was sappy, I'm out.