A Labor of Love: Spaghetti alla Carbonara & 1-2-3-4 Cake with Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting

In my family, on your birthday, you get to have whatever you want. (For dinner, that is.)

I like to extend that same privilege to the people I care about the most. So when my beau requested the spaghetti dish we shared at Dante and "peanut butter Tastykakes" for his birthday this past weekend, I set to work figuring out how to make both.

I found a classic version of Spaghetti alla Carbonara (no cream or vegetables or other unnecessary ingredients) via Epicurious, from a 2003 issue of Gourmet Magazine. I picked up some good Parmigiano Reggiano and Pecorino Romano at Whole Foods and was pleased to find that this dish is relatively quick and simple to make and very satisfying to consume. I served it with an arugula salad and a dry red wine to cut the richness of the cheese-and-egg sauced pasta.

For desert, I prepared another classic--a 1-2-3-4 cake that first came to my attention when it was published in an Alice Waters cookbook for kids called Fanny at Chez Panisse. It's a very old recipe whose name is a simple formula for remembering the basic ingredients (1 cup of milk, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, 4 eggs).

When I had looked around online for a chocolate peanut butter frosting, I wasn't convinced that the recipes I was finding were reliable (many of them called for natural peanut butter, which seemed questionable owing to its texture). A pastry chef friend advised making a peanut butter frosting and then covering that with a simple chocolate ganache. But then my sister suggested a milk chocolate peanut butter filling found in The Craft of Baking by Karen DeMasco. She'd made DeMasco's peanut butter sandwich cookies with the filling (and used the leftover as ice cream topping) and swore it was delicious.

As it turned out, the flavors of the yellow cake and the chocolate peanut butter frosting complemented each other very well--and the finished product even tasted like a Tastykake! It wasn't a light meal, but then, a birthday dinner, made with love, should be rich and filling.