stripey, halloween-ish cake

there was a party at my house last night.

my friends who were planning the party had stopped at a local bakery and purchased the yummy fruit tarts and jam cookies you see in the foreground, then a quick trip to trader joe’s landed the apricot almond tart and the “chocolate pringles.”  the layer cake?  well…… i volunteered to make that.  ever since i read the book eat cake by jeanne ray i’d been wanting to make a really yummy, decadent cake.  but there’s not often enough people around to justify baking a giant cake, so…. i’d put it on the bottom of my ever-growing “could do” list.  but yesterday was the day.  i’d been brainstorming myself through my baking mood and had a flash of inspiration–chocolate cake + pumpkin cake + cream cheese frosting = amaaaaaaazing.  And so i baked two round pumpkin cakes the night before, two chocolate cakes that morning, then right before the party, i whipped up a big (but apparently not big enough!  look at those crumbs peeking through!  never mind, rustic is good, right?) batch of cream cheese frosting.

apparently, my naughty kitty thought that the frosting was amazing too.  oh well, we’re all good friends (and many are cat owners) so we all had a good laugh and just cut that part off of the cake before slicing into it.

oh. my. goodness.  moist, delicious, and stripes too?  yum.

for the pumpkin layers, i used this recipe, and for the chocolate layers i used this recipe,  and the frosting was a variation of several recipes i found online, but it’s so decadent, i just can’t bring myself to admit the ingredients here.  if you really want to know, e-mail me and i’ll send you the recipe.

it also makes a good breakfast.