Maybe my best birthday cake ever

I could easily spend hours reading food blogs, and I find my old habit of clipping newspaper recipes has been supplanted by bookmarking and/or printing blog entries. Not that this stops me from continuing to acquire cookbooks.

Anyway, my recipe collections to tend to the dessert side, and I have quite a pile of untried treats. However, Deb of Smitten Kitchen recently referred to a cake she'd made a while back, and the timing was just right to catch my attention for my birthday cake. I make my own, you see, because that way I get just what I want. Most of the time. :)

So, the recipe is for Sour Cream-Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting and Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze, and originally came from Sky High: Irresistable Triple-Layer Cakes by Alisa Huntsman. I'm not that fond of peanut butter so I decided to try substituting almond butter. Worked great, even though the Trader Joe's almond butter was pretty runny and not, of course, homogenized. The recipe's caution about the oil separating out was unneeded...or maybe the cake just didn't stay around long enough for that to be a problem. I did add a little more powdered sugar to the frosting to stiffen it a little, and also kicked in a little almond extract because almond butter is a less assertive flavor than peanut butter.

( More and pictures behind the cut )