Milestones and chocolate cake...

My son turned eighteen today.

EIGHTEEN.

Wait.. what?

Yeah, you read that right.  Eighteen.

Half my age  -_-

We went out to dinner and had an excellent meal at a nice little Italian place by my office and I was nice enough not to embarrass him with the waitstaff singing happy birthday and making a scene.

I asked him earlier in the week what kind of cake he wanted and he requested a chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.  I have an excellent chocolate cake recipe that I've been using that is the moistest, most decadent chocolate cake not to mention comes together quickly and bakes up without a hitch every time.

I made the cake when I got home last night, split it this morning, filled it with ice cream, wrapped it in plastic wrap and set it back in the springform pan this morning and took it out when we got home from dinner.  He's got a few friends who got here a little later than expected so while they're watching TV I had to put the cake back in the freezer.

While the cake firms back up I decided to sit here and share the recipe with y'all :)

Super moist dark chocolate cake

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup boiling water

Instructions:

Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla.

 Beat with electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes.

 Remove mixer; stir in boiling water by hand.

 Pour the thin batter into a greased and floured 13x9x2-inch baking pan or two greased 9-inch layer cake pans or three greased 8-inch layer cake pans.

Bake at 350° for about 35 minutes for a rectangular cake or 30 to 35 minutes for layers. A wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center should come out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes in pan on rack then remove from pan and cool completely.

Frost as desired.

Wordless Wednesday

(Okay, a few words. I didn't make the cake, my cousins friend did. I made chocolate chip cookie dough filled cupcakes. The cupcakes were way better though according to everyone who had one.  I have to make another batch and I will share my recipe.)

Next Birthday:  My Godson's 1st birthday :)

Yes, I actually did this...

Because I like to torture myself, or to better phrase this Push myself past the limits I give myself, I volunteered to make a pinata for my nephew’s 2nd birthday party this weekend.  This is going to be a Yo Gabba Gabba themed party.  My choice of creature for this Pinata is Muno

I did some research online... making a pinata can’t be too hard.. Make a skeleton out of posterboard and some balloons and paper-mache it making sure to leave a trap door in the back to fill the sucker with candy.

I started this on Tuesday night by building the body

Wednesday night I did the first layer of paper-mache and left it in front of a big fan to dry overnight

Thursday night I did the second layer around the body and added the arms and head

Friday I glued sheets of red tissue paper to the body to cover up the newspaper and then proceeded to hot glue strips of crepe paper all around the body.  By the time I was finished it was 11:30, my thumb and index fingers were burnt and blistered and I was exhausted. 

Saturday morning I had the kid cut the eye out (which was, according to my cousin a little too big but oh well it was good enough since I'm not a regular watcher of yo gabba gabba) and I made the mouth and then glued them on, carefully put him in the back of my truck and went on our way to my cousin's to prepare for the party that was yesterday.

The Pinata waited patiently until we stuffed him with candy and taped him shut and then they tied him up and hung him from the balcony.

He took a good beating before the candy came spilling out, but the kids had fun and I think my nephew is a little traumatized from the experience of seeing his friend Muno get the candy beat out of him.

Will I do this again?  Yup.  It was fun.  It was a LOT of work and next time I'll use construction paper taped together for the body instead of the posterboard.  Posterboard was too strong even though I paper mache'd over it.  This was a Huge Pinata standing a good 4' tall when he was finished.

The Biggest cake I've ever made

Sunday was my best friend's son's 3rd birthday party. We've been planning the cake for weeks, first it was going to be a Buzz Lightyear cake, then she called me around 10 one night and had an idea, she wanted to make a train cake, but not just any train, we made the train from the book Freight Trains by Donald Crews.


In Particular, this train, that moves throughout the book.. in it's entirety!


We started baking early Saturday afternoon and after taking a break for a few hours to have dinner at her brother's for her sister in law's birthday (and running home to grab a change of clothes and my hand mixer because we burnt hers out!) the baking resumed around 9:30pm until almost 2am Sunday morning.. baking cakes, cupcakes and whipping up batches of buttercream frosting. By the time we got to bed the cakes were all filled, layered, shaped and mostly iced and all we had to do come morning was bake a batch of mini cupcakes and finish icing them as the wheels on the train.

It was a big job.. the biggest I've ever done at least:


We had to put the leaf in the dining room table just to fit the whole cake!





But, it was a huge success and her son was so excited when he saw the cake... and Everyone loved it!