Another birthday cake!

Yep, mo'cake.  And homemade icing too!  I know I just posted about this, but I had another kid with a birthday!  Mr. Terrible Two, is no longer two :(  He's a big THREE year old.  I'm not sure what to call him now.  Mr. Terrible Three just doesn't have the same ring to it.  I'm hoping to leave the "terrible twos" behind us...but so far, it's the "wide-open crazy boy still want to have tantrums threes".  He's my baby, I love him to absolute pieces, but he is a handful! 

Mr. Little Man has food allergies.  He is allergic to eggs and nuts, which makes baking....creative.  However, I couldn't let my baby boy down.  He wanted a shock-it (aka chocolate) cake.  I asked if he wanted brown or white icing and he very quicky replied 'brown'.  So chocolate cake with chocolate icing was on the menu.  I sent out a tweet, I googled, and I scanned my allergy friendly blogs and decided on Crazy Cake from allrecipes.com.  I actually saw this recipe on several different sites (or variations of) and my dear fellow foodie bloggy friend @adrienzgirl emailed it to me as well.  So, I figured this was a tried and true recipe and decided to give it a go.

Ingredients for egg free chocolate cake!

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder  *I used Hershey's Special Dark

3/4 cup vegetable oil  *I used 2/3 cup

2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups cold water

Directions

1.Sift flour, sugar, salt, soda, and cocoa together into a 9 x 13 inch ungreased cake pan. Make three wells. Pour oil into one well, vinegar into second, and vanilla into third well. Pour cold water over all, and stir well with fork.

2.Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 to 40 minutes, or until tooth pick inserted comes out clean. Frost with your favorite icing.
 

Looks pretty good right?!  It rose nicely and didn't shrink up like an old woman when I took it out of the oven as my cake mix cakes are wanton to do.  Don't ask.  And for the icing...even though I really liked this one, I decided to try Chocolate Frosting from foodnetwork.com.  Because I like to try different recipes, always searching for THE ONE.  Anyway...this icing was good. but not great.  It was thicker than I expected, but it was spreadable so I didn't want to keep adding anything for fear of messing it up.  It had a nice milk chocolate-y flavor that was a really good addition/contrast to the dark chocolate cake.  Even though I would have been happy with dark chocolate everything.  But, it wasn't my birthday. 
 
Ingredients

•3 cups confectioners' sugar

•3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

•1 stick butter, softened

•3 - 4 tablespoons heavy cream
•1 teaspoon vanilla

I also added a tiny pinch of salt and abt a half teaspoon of instant coffee granules (ground to a powder).  I should have added more, but I didn't really want to be able to taste the coffee flavor, just give the chocolate more depth. whatever that means.

Directions

Sift sugar and cocoa together into a large bowl. In another bowl combine 1 cup of sugar mixture with butter and 1 tablespoon cream, beating until smooth. Add another cup of sugar and another tablespoon of cream, beating well. Continue until all ingredients are combined and frosting is fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Spread frosting on top of one round. Top with second round and cover top and sides completely with frosting. 
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Obviously, I didn't make a round cake, but a 9x13, and I had enough icing.

I liked the fact that this icing didn't get so soft and start to melt like the other frosting I had made.  I just added some sprinkles and mini M&M's for decoration.  (since he had a Toy Story theme and I had no idea how to go about doing a Toy Story cake!)  He didn't care.

He was pretty excited!

He even helped me cut the cake :)

The cake turned out really well, and I will be using this cake recipe again.  It rose nicely, had a good flavor, and didn't completely fall to pieces when I cut it.  I may try subbing some of the oil with applesauce the next go round and see how that does.

I'll be posting more pics tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday!

Be sure to check HERE for some blog hops and recipe/craft linkys that I will be linking up with.

Linking up at Eat at Home for Ingredient Spotlight - cocoa, and I Should Be Mopping the Floor