Devil's Food Cake with Mint Frosting for Swee's Birthday

It was my friend Swee's birthday on Thursday, so I squeezed in making her a cake as a surprise when I met her for lunch.  I know Swee likes the choc mint flavour combination, so that is what I went with again this year.

Last year was the Andes Mint (aka Frankenstein's Head) cake.  I wanted this year's cake to be an aesthetic improvement as well as being choc mint.  This year, I made up my own choc mint combination.

First of all, I made the Devil's Food Cake from The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook that came with me all the way from NYC two years ago (wow, has it been that long?): 

There was a slight issue in that I forgot to add the egg whites - oops.  However, I had made myself a separate little cupcake so I could taste the result, and apart from the cake being a teensy bit crumblier than usual, it tasted just fine.  (There is baking powder and baking soda in the recipe so density was not an issue.) 


I then mixed up a half batch of Crabapple Bakery's buttercream frosting, and flavoured it with around five drops of vanilla (three, as recommended in the boo, did not cut it) and coloured it green (this year using the dropper to avoid The Hulk look).  I then frosted the bottom layer, whizzed up a Peppermint Crisp bar in the food processor, and sprinkled it on top:

The second layer was added and the whole cake frosted.  To make it pretty, I piped some white icing (thanks to Dr Oetker) around the top and bottom borders with a star tip, and positioned green cachous strategically around the top border.  Finally, I cut another Peppermint Crisp into pieces and positioned them on top of the cake:

I think it looks pretty!

Not sure how the cake went down, but I think it should have been pretty good, having tasted the components.