DAY 39 - Zipadee-a-and Hidee-ho!! Happy Birthday to You!

Happy Birthday Dad!! Well a day late, yesterday was my dad's birthday, but we decided to celebrate it today. It was a fairly low key affair since I'm the only one in the family around these days. But it was nice all the same. I gave my diabetic father the give of a giant triple chocolate four layer mint cream filled cake. Seemed like the perfect gift for someone on a low sugar, low carb diet. But it was his birthday, it's ok, calories don't count on your birthday. I have also recently learned I almost killed him on Christmas. We were moving the couch back in the living room after the big Christmas dinner and I was pushing it a little too fast which caused him to trip and fall over. He said he was fine at the time, but I just found out that the couch had landed on his toe and it has got infected. He was just at the doctor this week having his toe nail removed. A foot injury on a diabetic is not a good thing... So it looks like my new tradition is to see how I can harm my father on major holidays and special events. Easter's coming, he better stay clear of me to avoid an unfortunate Deviled Egg mishap.

Anyway, back to the cake. It took me most of the day to make, and was really fun. The cake was an easier recipe than I had mad e last year, but it still turned out pretty good. It has sour cream in it, and I like the extra liquid, makes the cake a little more moist, and it also give s a little tangy flavor. I also added chocolate chips to make it a double chocolate cake. My dad loves dark chocolate, so I made a dark chocolate ganache the put between the layers and to frost the top, then the sides I just made regular chocolate frosting, but added some mint extract. I also made a French cream for the filling. It tastes like the stuff inside a ding dong, or twinkie, its soooo good and fatty. I also added some mint extract to that to give the inside of the cake a minty tingle. After I had spent hours whipping, folding, blending and the such, I got out the cake decorating kit I had been so excited to use. I tried one of the tools and it didn't really give me the result I had wanted. I played around with it for a while and finally gave up. I was getting tired, and it was time to eat the freakin thing. So it didn't look as fancy as I had hoped, but it tasted pretty good. However, I was in such sugar overload from tasting frosting's and fillings all day I had a sugar headache and couldn't even finish my piece...That is a huge shocker, coming form someone who doesn't even know what the phrase "too rich" means...It's like a foreign language to me.

So that's the cake experience, I have decided to take a few weeks off from baking. I weighed myself today for the first time since October...not good! I haven't gained weight in almost 2 years, and I'm up higher than I've been in a while. I was kind of upset with myself. But I know how to cure the situation, so its back to working out 6 days a week instead of 3 and no more treats on the weekends for a while.