On Saturday it was my mom’s birthday!

We celebrated in Annapolis with gorgeous weather and seafood.

We also enjoyed some Snapchat fun:

“Hey mom, move to the side so I can fit you in the photo!” Since I grew up with Great Danes and my mom LOVES them, I’m convinced Snapchat did the filter for her birthday.

The cake was the real star of the day! My mom LOVES s’mores. When it comes to desserts our preferences differ. I could have opted for chocolate chocolate chocolate chocolate caramel something or the other, but s’mores is her thing and she loves peanut butter. SO, I made a graham cracker cake, chocolate ganache, peanut butter frosting, and smothered it in marshmallow frosting.

Um, she said this is the best cake she ever had. She even said that to her mom/my grandmother. My grandmother tends to take great pride in her Paula Deen style cooking/baking.

I knew I could use graham crackers in place of flour to pull off the graham cracker part of the cake. I didn’t have the time to put together a cake recipe, so good ol’ Pinterest provided a recipe from Cook Nourish Bliss for her Grandma’s Graham Cracker Cake. I only used the cake recipe.

For the ganache:

• Ghirardelli 60% Cacao bittersweet chocolate chips
• Some whole milk (left over from the cake)
• 1.5 tbsp. coconut oil (not melted)

I melted coconut oil in the pan, then added in the chocolate chips. As the chips started melting I added about 1/3 c. of whole milk. You can adjust the consistency by adding more milk. The coconut oil helped harden the chocolate while I refrigerated the cake and gave a nice consistency whenever it wasn’t in the fridge.

For the peanut butter frosting:

• 1.5c. of peanut butter
• 8 tbsp. of butter at room temperature
• sprinkle of kosher salt
• 1/2c. of whole milk (or heavy cream could work, maybe even half and half?)
• 1.5 tsp. vanilla
• a little over 2c. of powdered sugar

Thoroughly combine the peanut butter, butter, and stand in a mixer or with a hand mixer. Add in the remaining ingredients and mix on medium speed. Be patient and mix for about 5 minutes. It’ll be enough time for the frosting to get fluffy and light.

And to wrap it all up, the marshmallow frosting:

• 1 c. of butter
• ~4 c. powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp. of vanilla extract (I used clear extract to keep the frosting white)
• nearly an entire container (23 oz.) of fluff

First cream the butter, then add in your powdered sugar a cup at a time. Then add in the vanilla. I added about a cup of fluff at a time into the frosting. I wanted the frosting to be marshmallow-y and my mom likes really sweet frosting. Taste test the frosting as you add in the fluff!

To assemble the cake I baked the cake layers the night before I made the frostings. I put the ganache on top of the bottom cake layer and then put it in the fridge for about 15 min. After the chocolate hardened, I added the peanut butter frosting on top. I placed the next cake layer on and added another layer of ganache, stuck it in the fridge for 15 minutes and then more peanut butter frosting. I did the same thing for the last/top cake layer and after the ganache hardened, I frosted the entire cake with the marshmallow icing. I had some peanut butter frosting left and smeared it into a circle on top. I crumbled some graham crackers on top and added the ‘burnt’ part by smearing some ganache along the edge.

I’m not the best cake decorator, but I was going for the burnt marshmallow look. I needed to use up the little bit of ganache that was left, so I had slightly mixed/rubbed it around the edges at the top of the cake.

It’s a great tradition that my mom and I have started: making one another’s birthday cake. In ten days I’ll get to see how she did recreating a Milk Bar Birthday Cake!!