Birthday Celebration

We celebrated my mother-in-law's 76th birthday this past weekend.  Her birthday was on Friday and we had all the Chicago family over to celebrate.  I used it as an opportunity to bake a cake from scratch.  I think I have done that one other time in my life, and I wanted to see if I could do it.  I found a recipe online for a black forest cake.  Yum.  We had a jar of cherries that we bought in Door County on our mini-moon and I used those for the filling.   The recipe said to mix 40 oz. of cherries with 1/4c. of corn starch and 1/2 c. sugar, heat it over low heat stirring constantly until thickened.  Well, I didn't have 40 oz of cherries, the jar was only 32 oz, but I figured that would be enough.  So I did everything it said, stirring for about 20 minutes, but it didn't thicken like I expected.  It actually turned out pretty stretchy and more runny than I would expect I tried turning up the heat and stirring, and there was no change, so I let it cool and resolved that I would use it anyway and pray that the cake would cover up the starchy flavor.  One thing that the recipe said to do that worked out nicely was to grease and flower the cake pan, and then line the bottom with wax paper.  I didn't have wax paper either, so I used parchment paper.  When I turned the cake out of the pan, the bottom came out beautifully. I didn't know that trick, but I think it's one I will use from now on.   Cutting the layers in half was also a challenge.  It said to use a long serrated knife, and I used the longest brad knife I had, but it wasn't long enough to cut through the layer without having to cut around the cake, so needless to say, the halves didn't turn out perfectly even.  Maybe there is a long knife made for cake cutting out there somewhere?  Also, when decorating the cake with whipped cream frosting, I was wishing for a fancy decorating bag with the special tips, but instead I used a plastic baggie and cut off the tip.  It turned out alright, but not very even... I think that was probably my fault. And, the recipe said to crumble up one of the cake layers and save it to decorate the sides of the cake.  I had the cake decorated and the crumbs ready but I couldn't figure out how to get the crumbs from the bowl onto the cake.  It wasn't exactly as if I could pick up the cake and roll it around in the crumbs, and I thought if I picked them up in my hands and tried to press the crumbs on it would wreck the frosting and make it worse. So, I left it as it was.  It didn't look like the picture,  BUT, for all the little issues, the cake actually turned out pretty good.  It tasted wonderful, and it looked alright.  I am anxious to have an excuse to bake a cake again!

Happy Birthday Ruth!