Last year I picked up the All American Dessert Cookbook, which has gorgeous pictures and interesting bits to go along with the recipes. But more importantly, it has some very delicious recipes. I’ve been trying recipes over the past couple months, and I have to say that everything I’ve tried has been good.

So, for my birthday I decided to try the Molten Chocolate Lava Souffle Cakes. I figured, the best way to get the kind of cake I wanted was to make it myself.

Wow. Words cannot describe how delicious they were.

And, they were relatively easy to make, and I could make them ahead of time, and then put them in the oven when we were ready for dessert.

The drawback was that the recipe called for 16 oz of bittersweet chocolate, 2 sticks of butter, five eggs and an additional egg yolk.

But they were totally worth it.

When you put your fork into one of the cakes, the gooey melted chocolate in the center oozed it, and with fresh whipped cream…

(contented sigh)

Plus, I made sugar cookies with strawberry icing, made from fresh strawberries.

After all, my birthday only comes once a year.