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 :)

two really awesome cakes for one great girl

Today was my cousin April's baby shower.. I made one cake.. I bought the other cake from Rosie's, a local Italian bakery that opened a few months ago... my cake was totally inedible. NOT because I messed it up, but because it was a diaper cake (and lets not discuss the fact that I'm still living in this apartment with no A/C) and baking or even turning the oven on for any reason whatsoever is totally out of the question until it's not 85°f in here as the median temperature for at least 2 days.

This is by far the biggest diaper cake I've ever made, and I've made quite a few over the past few years. I used 2/3's of a case of Huggies and every single diaper is usable because they're folded and not rolled. Diaper cakes made with rolled diapers are basically unusable when you're done with it because the integrity of the diaper is compromised. Granted, doing it the folded way takes time and patience but it's so worth it. Along with the burp cloths that are wrapped around the 2nd tier there are goodies inside the diaper cake also, some baby wash, a bottle brush and baby shampoo, not only give some structure to the cake, but as a little extra surprise too.

Now.. for the Real cake:


I ordered the cake from Rosie's, which I've blogged about here and here bragging about their amazing cappuccino and raving about the cupcakes and I'll be honest, I hadn't tried the cake before.. but I was a firm believer that it was going to be amazing.. and it was! The cake was moist and fresh and I was really pleased when everyone kept commenting on how good it was.


To be honest, everything I've ever gotten from Rosie's was amazing and everything is always fresh... and their staff.. amazing, absofreakinglutely the nicest people and I'm so glad that they moved their bakery into my neighborhood. I can count on going to Rosie's any day of the week and not being disappointed, whether the kid wants a mango smoothie, I need my morning coffee, a loaf of fresh baked bread, I'm craving a cupcake or any of the other pastries they have fresh daily they are always sure to deliver.

Will I order another cake from Rosie's? Absolutely! Maybe next time I'll order a dozen cupcakes too.

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!

The Atom cake project

'
Thursday night my kid says to me "Hey mom, I have an extra credit science project to do..."

I’m pretty sure any mom reading this knows what comes next... so I asked my kid “well, when is it due?” Um... November 3rd. That’s Tuesday! Arrgh! So, what’s this project about? “Atoms” ok, so what are you going to make this atom of? “Well, I told the teacher that I was going to make it out of cake and share it with the class” Oh, so loosely translated this means that mom has to bake the cake and put some icing on it and then he will decorate it as the atom of his choice. *sigh*

Science is 4th period, which means it’s 10:07-10:50 so I figured ok, I have some super ripe bananas and I was going to make banana bread anyway, so lets make a banana cake.. At least it’s kinda healthy-ish for that early in the morning.. Banana is fruit after all, right? (LOL. Like the 13 year olds really care)

So I collect all my ingredients and I realize I’m short on sugar, I have 1½ cups and need 2½ cups grr.. Fine, there’s a bag of ‘splenda for baking’ in the cabinet so I use a cup of that to make up for the rest of the sugar... that was my big mistake, my total downfall in this cake making process. Now, I should have known better.. I’ve made this mistake before with the lemon bars but the result was not this... um... disastrous, at least those were edible... these.. Um, notsomuch really.. More of hockey pucks. They were dense and chewy at the same time, yet I’m sure had I tossed one on the floor it would have bounced.

This is the recipe:

Banana Cupcakes
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 1/8 cups canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 ripe bananas, mashed
1 1/2 cups milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a standard sized muffin pan with muffin liners or spray with cooking spray. In a large mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients. Mix until just blended.Fill muffin cups a little more than 3/4 full. Bake for about 20 - 24 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool completely.

The failed batch..they baked for almost 40 minutes because after 25 minutes they were.. GLUEY and then the cupcakes stuck miserably to the paper cups.. I had greased the aluminum pan with Crisco and so it slid right into the trash can with ease *sigh* maybe I should have tossed it out to feed to the birds.. but then again.. I don't think they would have eaten it either.

Ok, so good thing I decided to do this Sunday night when the project is due on Tuesday.. I was leaving time for the cake to rest and cool so that it could be decorated as an atom today.. But no, that wasn’t going to happen with that frisbee.. So off to the grocery store I went on my way home tonight to get more bananas and another bag of sugar and there we went again.

The result...

Moist and fluffy and perfect.

This recipe makes a TON, I made a 9" round cake and 12 cupcakes (this recipe makes 36 cupcakes!)

Cake is cooling now and it will be iced & decorated later by the kid and I'll get a pic before it goes off to school tomorrow :)

Update!

The finished cake:

(BTW, it's a Potassium Atom)

Finished cake = kids report & presentation =90%
Sweet!