Last week we celebrated the birthday of one of the best people I know, Brendan Gilmartin! The celebration was accompanied by a delicious chocolate ice cream cake from Haagen Dasz.

Brendan blows out the candle on the cake in question

The problem with this delicious chocolate ice cream cake (and all ice cream cakes) is the unthawing conundrum — not enough and you’ve got a rock, too much and you have soup. This particular ice cream cake had a solid chocolate coating which was deceptively cold just minutes before the party (note the frost in the above picture). I ran the length of the office, looking for the warmest room to heat it quickly after an hour of thawing seemed like it wasn’t going to cut it (turns out it was Mark Satlof’s office), cracked the coating when I tried to insert a single candle, and cringed in fear as Rebecca Shapiro was about to cut in. Luckily all my fear was unfounded… the opposite actually happened and it was closer to soup than rock. Melting quickly, we managed to devour it and leave nothing but a melty mess on the table. Evidence:

The previously mentioned "melty mess"

The ice cream cake dilemma in a nutshell. But it was all worth it! Because the cake was in fact delicious, and we all got to wish Brendan a very happy birthday!