Dad's Birthday Cake

As I mentioned before, one of the main reasons we have our yearly family cabin weekend in November is to celebrate my dad's birthday.  Every year my sister usually gets a birthday cake from the store (usually a pirate one...it's an inside joke), but this year I decided to make one from scratch.  And I decided to make it lactose-light so my brother-in-law could actually have some!  I ended up making this brown butter and vanilla bean layer cake with bourbon buttercream (well, margarine-cream).  Plus, I had recently seen this scallop tutorial on Pinterest and was itching to try it out (I thought it was interesting but not too girly or anything for my dad).

The scallop design turned out fairly well for my first go at it.  The cake itself was good, but a little dry.  And the bourbon buttercream was subtle, so even my mom (a non-bourbon drinker) liked it. 

 I wasn't too crazy about the consistency of the margarine-cream frosting...but I'm a butter purist when it comes to cake baking, and I'm glad I tried it and I know it can be done.

I also made a batch of this caramel sauce (wet method) and these candied pecans (minus the cayenne) to accompany the cake.  And both came in very handy as waffle toppers the following morning!

My dad blowing out his candles.

The finished product.

It was a fun cake to make, since it was the first cake I've ever made for my dad's birthday.  And I'll definitely be trying out that scallop design again in the future...it was so easy and a nice way to cover up imperfections on the sides of the cake.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!  Happy Friday!