I’ve been making my own birthday cake for several years now, and each year I tend to think I’ve outdone myself. But this really might be the year. This is the year of Chocolate Cake with Dulce de Leche Filling and Dark Chocolate Ganache Frosting.
If we’ve met in real life or if you’ve been reading this blog for a while now, you’ll know that after chocolate, my other dessert favorite is dulce de leche (caramel’s thicker, sultrier cousin). These are a few of my past birthday cakes: Yellow Cake with Dark Chocolate Frosting, Chocolate Rum and Dulce de Leche Pie, Chocolate Cake with with Cherry Preserves and Sour Cream Frosting, and Julia Child’s Chocolate Almond Cake.

Baking my own birthday cake is fun. Planning out the flavors, waiting for the layers to cool, frosting the cake, there’s something oddly relaxing but deeply enjoyable about it. But I like it even more now because I get to share it with my husband Matt, as our birthdays our only two days apart! This means that I also need to take into consideration Matt’s favorite flavors. This is the guy who gleefully eats Olive Oil Dulce de Leche cake for breakfast (yes, I absolutely married the right one). So it only makes sense to make this cake.

I used to not like chocolate cake. (I’m serious!) It’s just that most chocolate cakes that I used to get from restaurants are dry and flavorless. But this all changed when I made my own chocolate cake, using a recipe...