Baker, baker, bake me a cake

I turned 33 on Monday, an age so uneventful that I was convinced that I was turning 34 until my husband pointed out my bad arithmetic.  Thank goodness that not only is my husband good at math, he's pretty good at baking.  Look what he made his wife:

He asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I declared -- maybe squealed -- "RED VELVET CAKE."  And not just any red velvet cake, specifically the Smitten Kitchen version, which has been the Jenna Jameson of my food porn collection for a very long time.

It was every bit as sexy as I imagined: fluffy, luscious cream cheese frosting, and a cake so moist and chocolatey that I'd -- gasp -- even eat it without frosting.  The cake was so good it was almost possible to ignore deny the fact that it took six tablespoons of food coloring (that's more than one full container of red food dye) to make it crimson.  

As good as the basic Smitten Kitchen recipe is, I have to give husband props for amping up the deliciousness by making an intensely coffee-flavored buttercream with which he piped on the man squiggles.    

We had some friends over for a Memorial Day barbecue, so we had the cake with peaches, which we brushed with a bit of butter and brown sugar and caramelized on the grill.  It was dreamy.

How was your Memorial Day?