When I think of graham crackers, images of gooey and ultra sweet s'mores come to mind.  Immediately.  Like there's nothing else to think of other than that, right?  But what if you aren't feeling s'mores at the moment?

I know.  Strange.

But when you do feel unfeeling s'mores, gather the lemons life (or your local market) may give you!  This one right here is going to be good.  Real good!

Chocolate Cherry Cake

The original plan was to make mini cakes.  Mini Black Forest cakes, that is.  I looked for recipes on the Web and there are a lot.  Some range from doable to 'oh dear maybe next time' complicated.  Some use store-bought cherry pie filling while some cook up their own.  Some use liquors while others leave it out.  Some use only this kind of cherries while some use that kind of cherries...and so on!

It seems everyone has their own way of making Black Forest cake and whatever works for them, great!  Right?

Coffee and White Chocolate Chip Cookies

I could have gone the usual route and baked a regular chocolate chip cookie.  But why would I do that, right?  Most especially when there's a huge ass bottle of instant dark roast coffee in the pantry!

So I looked for a recipe where it is used and found one!

Whipped Chocolate Buttercream and Chocolate Cupcakes for two!

I have a scenario for you:  Your best friend of more than a decade (and counting) subtly hinted that she'd like for you to make her birthday cake on her birthday (of course).  And you, being the wonderful friend that you are, may have said yes or pretended not to hear but really, you're already planning what flavor and design you'll be doing with the upcoming birthday girl's request.

Let's skip to a couple of weeks and into the day.  The birthday.  The day you'll be 'surprising' your best pal with cake.