buttercream celebration cake
It looked better before I tried to transport it in the car. The toothpicks I put in to keep the foil off the top fell over and the "Happy Birthday" got mushed.
This is a European-style cake, thin layers of a genoise soaked in grand marnier sugar syrup and frosted with an Italian buttercream (sugar, water, egg whites, and butter. Lots of butter. And I'm getting much better at pouring the boiling syrup (238!) into the whipped egg whites (to cook them) without getting it all over the side of the bowl. Practice! Practice!)
The alcohol is not cooked out of the syrup. And the frosting is very, very buttery. It's like -- eating butter. With sugar and egg. Not as light and fluffy as the French buttercream, but that's because it got a little cold while I was working with it. I also under-whipped my egg in the cake, so it's a little rough in the mouth.