It was my birthday yesterday. I am now 40 years old. When I talked about my upcoming birthday with friends I did so with disappointment in my voice. After all, I’m not supposed to be happy about getting older, right? The truth is though, I have never been so excited for a birthday in all of my life. I love my birthday. I love feeling special for the day. I also love to make wishes and resolutions, and what better day to do that then on one’s own personal New Year’s Day. Sure I had some anxious feelings about being in my forties. I’m not young anymore. Youth is long gone, and that makes me feel sad, but I’ve never felt as complete in my life as I do right now. I spent my 40th birthday with the best people that came out of my thirties–my husband and my babies. I kept Aron company in the kitchen while he cooked us dinner. We drank beer, made each other laugh, and then dissected each joke to see whose was funnier. I made a vegan birthday cake so that all of my boys could enjoy it (blasted food allergies!), and topped it with a crown of Jacques Torres’ chocolate spirals. We sang Happy Birthday, ate more than we should have, and went to bed without cleaning up.
I don’t know what the next decade will bring, but right now, at 40 years of age, I am at my happiest.
Chocolate spirals are super cool and super easy. All you need is melted chocolate…
a piping bag, and a large bowl of very cold vodka. Keep the vodka in the freezer for 24 hours. Because it doesn’t freeze like water it is the perfect liquid to swirl in melted chocolate.
Pipe decorative swirls into the vodka. The chocolate will harden immediately. Gently take it out with chopsticks and lay it down on parchment paper to dry out. You can see my very low budget YouTube video on making chocolate spirals here.
I recommend using the chocolate swirls immediately, however, you could place them on a baking sheet and keep in the freezer until ready to use. I did find that the frozen chocolate swirls became a bit more brittle and changed color slightly after being in the freezer for 24 hours.
The cake recipe I used was my go-to vegan chocolate cake with vegan vanilla buttercream. You can find that recipe here.
Oh, and one more thing.. the chocolate won’t affect the vodka! Be sure to strain the vodka before carefully pouring it back into the bottle. It will make for a fabulous martini one day without having any taste of chocolate.
Happy Birthday to me!
