Irish soda bread, chocolate cake and company

The end of June is always insane. Father's Day, finals, grades, graduation and mom's birthday all sort of roll into one party after another that leave me overtired, worn out on politeness and needing a vacation from the start of summer vacation. It's hard getting company while trying to tie up the end of the year and this year we had some really important things to celebrate: mom had a big birthday and my brother got a big promotion.

Since Laura and I couldn't eat mom's fabulous cake and I was cooking dinner for a date the night before, I decided to half the recipe for the six layer chocolate raspberry cake and make a yummy three layered version. I wound up making this cake three times and each time it was great. The first time was for father's day. I changed up the recipe a little using a tried and true chocolate ganache sauce for the frosting and a chocolate and hazelnut filling between the bottom two layers. It was amazing. I made the same for work friends, but went a little overboard on the bottom layer and it came out soggy. The date and party version were spot on. Definitely a decent chocolate cake, well balance to prevent dryness.

The Irish soda bread was a fiasco the first time around. I couldn't find oat flour, so I tried to ground oats into flour. It wasn't pretty, but it tasted amazing. The second was much better, but I noticed both recipes required far more liquid than called for... Hmmm.

I will be making both of these recipes again!