Vegan Campfire S’mores Cake (a.k.a. The When this kind of Fire starts, it is very hard to put out Cake)

With a very dear friend’s birthday deserving a proper cake, especially after the praise I received for my recent vegan Pom Pom Cake, this cake (below) would just not do.  Though it tasted great, it was–hideous looking.  There was no way this was going to cut it!  So it was back to the kitchen to capture love in cake form once again.

Without any clear direction from its recipient, I went the S’mores route–mostly because of the possibility of thematic elements:
1) Contrasting cake layers: chocolate and graham
2) Marshmallow meringue
3) Fancy torch work
4) Pipework
5) Chocolate ganache
6) Cookie crumb
7) All of this together in a decorative challenge
8) Love the way you want to be loved (i.e. unconditionally and with S’mores cake)

Marshmallow fluff… perfection in confection.  And I got Bart Simpson on the beater.

4 layers later with cookie crumb and chocolate ganache, yadda yadda yadda, and I was ready to use the butane torch.

I had some decorative mishaps…. so I made buttercream “fire” to excuse the marshmallow collapse.  Because fire doesn’t care about your rules.  It burns them all up.

Save!  The When this kind of Fire starts, it is very hard to put out Cake (credit: Log Lady)

And we were ready to dig into the fire and fluff.  

To birthday baking and related chemical reactions.