Chocolate Bundt Cake for 3rd Birthday

My son's 3rd birthday was in the beginning of November. I was planning to make the Milk Bar Birthday Cake, and even had all of the ingredients. Unfortunately, I had a fibromyalgia flare, which causes pain and fatigue. And . . . I went with a mix!

A while ago, my church had a chocolate cake Bake-Off, and I and my Chocolate Sour Cream Cake came in second. The first place winner was the Chocolate Cavity-Maker Cake, which uses a mix. It seemed a great choice for my sons birthday cake, especially after I found this Number Three Cake made from 2 Bundts.

It's a very easy cake.

I put in my mixer bowl one chocolate cake mix, one 4 ounce chocolate pudding mix, 8 ounces of sour cream, and 3 eggs.

I added ⅓

I added 1/3 cup vegetable oil and 1/2 cup water (the recipe calls for coffee flavored liqueur) and mixed until smooth.

Then I mixed in 12 ounces or 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips. It was a very nice, thick batter.

I sprayed my Bundt pan very thoroughly with Baker's Secret flour and oil spray, which has given me the most success with Bundt pans. It transferred the batter to the pan and smoothed it out a bit.

I baked the cake at 350 and checked it after 50 minutes, though it ultimately took 70 minutes. The cake should be damp in the middle. I cooled the cake completely, turning it out onto a rack after 15 minutes.

The next day I repeated the whole process.

After both cakes were cool, I cut and arranged them into the shape of he number 3.

 

As you can tell from the crumb coat (American buttercream), the cake was difficult to ice, which I think is a feature of cakes from a mix. If it wasn't for a birthday, I would serve it without icing, as it was sweet enough as it is.

I decorated with sprinkles and everyone was really happy with the cake. I personally ate the un-iced bits I had cut out to make the 3.

It was a good lesson for me, and reminded me that cake mixes exist for a reason.

On a personal note, I'm going to try to get back into blogging. My mothers cancer seems to be completely gone, and I'm feeling interested in cooking and writing again.

 

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Minecraft Cake

One year ago, I started taking cake decorating lessons to learn to make birthday cakes for my kids. Here's Liam's eight birthday cake

Minecraft is a computer game based on building a world of cubes. I liked the idea of a landscape cake, and saw some cakes on Instrucables (here and here) that used Rice Krispy Treats for the sand blocks, and iced cake for the grass blocks. Both my cake and my Rice Krispy Treats came out approximately 3 centimeters high, so I used 3 cm as my unit length. The smallest cube is 3 cm by 3 cm and every length is an even multiple of 3 cm.

For the cake I used the Chocolate Sour Cream Cake recipe and my American Buttercream recipe. For the Rice Krispy Treats I used a double recipe from ATK Quick Family Cookbook (associate link). For the water I used Wilton piping gel tinted blue over a trimmed Rice Krispy Treat, but you could also use blue gel icing. The base is a scalloped half sheet board I picked up somewhere.

I used American buttercream tinted green to glue the cake layers together. I made the grass topping using tip 233, the famous grass tip. It was very hard on my hands. Also, the grass did not provide a thick icing layer, a minor disappointment to some of the kids.

The kids, and my son, loved the cake. When it was time to cut the cake, I was swarmed by kids who wanted a piece of each: grass, sand, and water.

 

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