When my husband and I traveled to Argentina for our honeymoon, we brought back a jar of dulce de leche. I sought a cake recipe that incorporated this caramel-like spread and struck gold when I found this decadent one that included all of my husband’s favorite flavors – peanut butter, coffee, bananas, dulce de leche and chocolate. I promised I would make this cake for his birthday, so Happy Birthday, Bob!

I made one 7 inch and one 9 inch chocolate cake and sliced each into three layers, On each layer, I spread dulce de leche, peanut butter mousse and sliced bananas. I used a chocolate ganache frosting, and then decorated the sides with sliced almonds and piped more ganache for the borders.

My husband loves robots, so I created a robot topper out of marzipan and then colored it gold; it also held the tall gold sparkler candles for a special effect! I heard some “Oh my God’s” across the room as guests ate the cake – they were gratifying remarks after all the work!

This was a cake made for a friend’s birthday party. Coconuts were integral to the cake, filling and of course, decoration. I used finely chopped shredded coconut and coconut milk for the cake batter. The three layer cake filled with two layers of coconut custard made with egg yolks, milk and more coconut, and was frosted with grand marnier buttercream. I was so excited to find large organic coconut flakes at Whole Foods, which I pressed onto the buttercream. Finally, candied violets added a bit of contrast and color.