You know how some holidays exist on one day and have an “observed” day on a different day?  Scott’s birthday is on that list this year.  There just wasn’t any way to make the actual holiday feel like a holiday.  Between leaving for work an hour early, getting home an hour late, and having a Scott who’s committed to rugby practice, it wasn’t happening.

And thus “birthday observed.”

On birthday observed, the menu was fried chicken with sweet potato pancakes and six-layer chocolate cake with salted caramel and chocolate frosting.  Yum.

The star of the menu turned out to be the fried chicken, courtesy of The Pioneer Woman.

I did make one chicken-fryin’ mistake.  I’d been measuring flour and sugar and things for a while in pursuit of the perfect chocolate cake, so I guesstimated the flour for the fried chicken.  I think the spices in the mix would have been more effective if I had actually measured the flour (think I used too much flour, not enough spice).  But…

Despite my error, it was crispy, flavorful (buttermilky delicious), and I would say a huge success.  Especially for my first time out.  I’ll admit that I was terrified to try fried chicken for the very first time for an important birthday observed dinner.  PW got me through with her solid advice and helpful pictures.  Her suggestion to fry with the lid on helped keep things less greasy in the kitchen, too.

Sweet potato pancakes are a great side to go with fried chicken–a play on the old combo of fried chicken and waffles.  My sweet potato pancakes, however, could use a tweak or two before they make a public recipe debut.

The birthday sheep approved of the combo.

And then moseyed on over to the cake.

One of them got turned around.  You know how sheep are about following directions.

Anyway, the cake was good.  It was rich.  So rich!  The caramel between layers was supposed to stay kind of solid, but instead it seeped into the chocolate cake to make one solid layer of moist, chocolate caramel.  It was incredible, but I can only make it through half a piece at a time.  Trust me, if you want to eat one thing from birthday observed, it’s the fried chicken.