Devil's Food Party Cake: Celebrating Joshua's birthday with chocolate

After making the same cake for my son since forever, this recipe got an update

Hello! Hello!

Years ago, I had an idea about writing a birthday cake book. It was going to have 100 recipes (one for every year of a person’s life – I’m an optimist) and cakes of all kinds. Some would be fussy – in those days I still did fussy – and some would be simple. None would look like the Fudgie the Whale cake from Carvel that my son Joshua wanted for one of his birthdays, although I did have teddy bear and ballerina cakes lined up.

I never wrote the book. Never even got close. I stopped as soon as I realized how wrong I was for the job. Since Joshua’s the one who always celebrated with cake, and since he always wanted chocolate cake, my repertoire was limited. I could have made up 99 new cakes, but the oopmph wasn’t there. And so I went back to what we refer to as “the” birthday cake - a favorite cake with chocolate layers and chocolate frosting that I began making when Joshua was – gosh, I can’t think of how old he was when this cake became his.

Baking a birthday cake is an act …