Birthday Baking

Wednesday was boyfriend's 24th birthday, so you know what that means... birthday cake! Also, with my beautiful shiny new mixer, I decided cake from scratch and delicious buttercream icing were both in order. So boyfriend got a 6" double layered dark chocolate buttermilk cake with chocolate buttercream and caramel ganache. There was also what was supposed to be caramel buttercream in the middle... but that ended up more like a weird butterscotch fudge and we'll just pretend it didn't happen, because the rest of the cake was oh-so-good.
I believe I've posted this cake before... as Chocolate Buttermilk Cake. This is the same recipe, but cut approximately in half, and made with dark chocolate instead of semisweet... like such:

1/2 cup dark chocolate
2 tbsp water
1 cup flour (generous)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch teaspoon salt
scant 1/2 cup butter (softened)
12 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cups white sugar (generous)
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk

I baked them in my 6" cake pan, and it gave me to nice, thick layers. The buttercream was really kinda made up as I went, with a basic butter to icing sugar ratio of 1:4, with melted dark chocolate and vanilla splashed in there. And the butterscotch filling stuff was made the same way... with melted caramel chips, but that didn't work out so well... it kind of seized into this weird fudge-like mixture, which tastes pretty good but is texturally odd. I won't be doing that again. Finally, the best part of the cake, was the caramel ganache on top. You can't really see it because it was almost the same colour as the icing... but you can definitely taste it. Yum! Caramel chips and a couple of dark chocolate squares melted with whipping cream, and poured on top of the cake. The border acts like a dam, so it looks pretty and is functional.