It’s been an annual tradition for a while now where I bike my age in miles. I turn 49 on Monday, so I needed 49 miles 😀
Monday weather looked iffy, so I chose to do the ride on Sunday. My longest ride this season has been 41 miles, so I was ready for the ride.
One more year of miles and then I am going to switch over to kilometers LOL! Â It’s getting to be a long ride. Â That was like a 19 mile run.
I have to say that I am in really great bike shape for the season. I’ve got good endurance and my hill legs are much better than last year. Not sure why, but I’ll take it.
It was family cake time after that. I was ready to refill those calories 😀  Yesterday John spent hours making a cake for me.  We’ve gotten into watching the Great British Baking Show on Netflix, which makes us want to bake all the things. Anyway, there was a master class on the recipes and a dobos torte was on the show. Normally chocolate, but Mary Berry made it all about caramel and John said he would make it for me. I loves me some caramel. Here is the recipe.
The cake ended up with 10 layers. Here was assembly:
I came out to peek occasionally, but tried to stay out of the kitchen while he was baking. Â It turned out very impressive!
Instead of brittle, I requested candied pecans around the outside. Â The top is so pretty!
That is a layer of the cake topped with some caramel and cut into triangles.
This cake was the star of the show. John did an amazing job. Â The inside:
For as rich as the cake is, it is actually very light.  I don’t think I will ever get John to make this cake again, but it was worth it 😀  I could probably use another 49 miles to have another slice!
Happy birthday! Somehow I didn’t remember you and Shelley having birthdays so close together. I love the Great British Bakeoff! I’ve watched some of the Masterclass shows on Netflix. But never made anything from them. I’m very impressed with John’s work!
Watching that show makes me want to eat a lot LOL
Holy moly, that is one impressive cake!!! Nice job, John!
Happy (early) Birthday! I will be converting my birthday runs into kilometers soon, too – it’s too hot to run that far. Glad you feel so good about biking and congrats on the 49 mile ride!
Thank you!
Happy Birthday Lorie! That cake looked yummy and very pretty!
I would make a simplified version of it again, using some ways to make it easier and better at the same time. For one, make an easier caramel sauce that includes butter (there are a lot of these recipes around the internet — just google “easy caramel sauce”). It is much easier to make that way because you avoid the crystallization, and it gets combined with butter to make the buttercream anyway so there’s no reason not to. And then just fewer layers of cake and/or only 1 tier instead of 2.
I love that Great British Cooking show!!!! 🙂
Holy cow Lori – you are loved!!!!!!! OMG I want some!!! HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! You are young to me! xoxoxo
Jon is so impressive with his cooking pursuits!!!
Happy birthday to my favorite blogging buddy. Hope you’re enjoying the day. It’s a lovely 74 degrees here and if it’s like that in NY then I’m sure you’ll be biking for some kind of sweet treat. 🙂
Thank you! Unfortunately, it rained today so no biking 😀
OMG! John MADE that cake. Thank God he is not my husband 🙂 That thing looks A M A Z I N G !!!!
It was delicious. I’ll probably never get him to make another LOL
Hmmm I wouldn’t switch to km’s, that would be 78 miles if you would bike 49 km.
I like this tradition you have on your birthday (and as Shelley does with running).
Your birthday cake looks so beautiful and delicious.
If I switched riding 50 miles to 50k, that would only be about 31 miles. That’s the math I mean 😀