Chocolate Birthday Cake

What is the deal with everyone wanting Chocolate Birthday Cake? Seriously… haha. Okay, let’s back up and I’ll explain. Tbug’s birthday is the 2nd of January. Then my father-in-law’s birthday is the 9th of January. Bam, 2 in a row.

When I asked her what she wanted, it was a yellow cake with chocolate icing. Very plain and simple. Sometimes though, those are the best. Then I asked my father-in-law what he wanted. He said, oh, I guess chocolate maybe.

Chocolate, okay, we could go many different ways with that, right? But… then he mentioned, not German Chocolate or was it not Devil’s food chocolate. Gosh, I can’t even remember now. Either way… that did help narrow it down a little.

I had run across The Stay at Home Chef‘s The Most Amazing Chocolate Cake. I’ve made the cake before, which ended in me almost having a meltdown and crying. Ugh! But I’ve learned quite a few tricks since then… So… I decided to make it word for word recipe-wise.

The Chocolate Cake

Oh gosh, I’m sitting here watching Julie and Julia and soooooooo wanting to cook. Haha… But instead we’ll look at pictures of baking, how about that?

This cake is super simple to make. But just because it is super simple, don’t let that fool you that it isn’t super delicious. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

A lot of cakes these days say to do it by hand. Don’t over mix. yada yada yada. This cake was actually made with the mixer. Now, I know my mixer and after I do things with it, especially cakes, I run a spatula through the batter just to make sure it’s all incorporated.

Putting together

This picture was actually taken for a photo class I’m taking. I was mad at myself because I didn’t get the counter/stove completely cleaned. Shame on me. And then I post it here for the whole world to see. Go me. I’m cool like that. Then… I point it out. Oh well… keeping it real people, keeping it real.

I’ve mentioned butter so many times that if I did it again, you could be rich if you got paid every time I did. Sad for you, you’re not getting paid.

This butter I used was Irish butter, but not the kind I can get around here. That’s a brand called KerryGold. I don’t exactly remember what brand this was… it was some I got when we were in Ft. Worth back in December.

When I took my cake decorating classes back in either 2007 or 2008, the teacher joked that her kids/husband only knew what the top of the cake tasted like. Well, my family knows that too. When I make cakes for other people, I throw the tops in a pan and we can all munch/taste the cake. Yey!

So making this cake I ran out of regular cocoa powder. I could have gone Dutch-Processed Cocoa powder but… that stuff is hard for me to find, so I use it sparingly. Instead, I finished off with Dark Cocoa powder. Some in the cake and all in the icing.

Yum

Hahaha… That heading says it all. At this point I had tried the chocolate cake and the chocolate icing. One thing I’ve noticed about chocolate cakes in general, they don’t dome if there is one like a vanilla or white or even yellow cake do. The dome but then sink in the middle, even though they are done. It’s weird and hard to explain.

But remember, that top layer, flip it over so you get a beautiful bottom to put on the cake top!

And there you have it. A beautiful cake. I had some extra icing so I used my spatula to make the little swirls on it. I wasn’t able to take it to my father-in-law on his birthday. By the time I got it done, he was at church and when he was finished, I had to get the buglet ready for bed.

So the next day I took it to him. We got to try it as well. Hey, perks of making it for a family member or friend. Tbug got her driver’s license and she was supposed to be at our house the next day. Her mother made her drive over to make sure she wouldn’t get lost, so she got to try it too. Yey!

It was delicious and my father-in-law thought it had a coconut-y flavor. Maybe… that comes from the delicious butter. Just a thought, but I promise no coconut in there. It has to be the butter!

Happy Birthday to my father-in-law (a little late here… I sent texts and saw him in person on his birthday. It’s all good. It was even Facebook official. Go me!

By the way, make this cake like yesterday!!