Birthday/Anniversary Cake

I flippantly said I wanted my wife to make me a birthday cake from a recipe in Garden & Gun magazine. I didn't actually look at the recipe- just the picture. Sweet woman that she is, she got the recipe and went to the store and purchased the 3 lbs. of butter, 16 eggs, 3 cups of sugar and the not-too-ripe pears and spent a day making the cake. It's amazing. It's huge and rich and we need give some away or the consequences may not be pretty.