Turns out, it doesn’t matter. It’s not just my daughter. It’s pretty much everything I do. Here is the cake I made for Ross’s 40th birthday.

You might say, that doesn’t look that complicated or over the top. Just you wait.

Three layers and yes, that is a cozy coupe in the background.

A berry reduction that I pureed, sifted, and cooked to perfection!

A mascarpone cheese icing, that I’m going to be honest with you, i probably should have read the directions first. I just threw everything into the bowl and started mixing. When it was still liquid after a couple of minutes, I realized I had the wrong attachment on my mixer. Then, I might have turned my back for a few minutes while it was mixing and suddenly I had a full bowl of icing. It was damned delicious though.

Now the layers. Three to be exact.

Here’s where my inability to keep things under control comes in. I made the fruit reduction first. Thinking that I was making three cakes, the recipe must be wrong. I didn’t realize that the layers would be so thin as they honestly, should be with a layer cake. The recipe didn’t seem like enough fruit filling. So, in keeping with my portion control issues, I doubled it. This was what I had left after building the cake and icing it.

Instead of just letting it go and being a normal person, because now we have a giant cake in the house that only one person is actually going to eat, I double downed on the sugar.

Yep, those are cinnamon rolls and fruit filled rolls.

Also, delicious, by the way.

Happy Birthday Ross!