Happy Birthday Kaiya!!!

Yesterday we celebrated the 14th birthday of Kaiya, my friend Heidi's daughter, down at Fattboyz Grillin. It was a small gathering of family, parental friends and Kaiya's friends; and everyone had a good time talking, eating and just enjoying the afternoon together. Kaiya is a lovely young lady, and the happiness and pride she gives her mom was quite evident upon Heidi's face. Kudos go to Heidi's hubby Sean too for being a good stepdad, keeping all the little kids corralled, and the lighting of the birthday candles without setting the place on fire.

Our meal at Fattboyz consisted of a barbeque sandwich with two sides, and soft drink; all awesome as per usual.  Heidi and I both made cakes for the occasion, and everyone seemed quite pleased with them.  I have to admit that the cake I made was from scratch, and it actually gave me nightmares for several nights in a row.  I plotzed over screwing it all up, but everyone seemed to enjoy it, so I must have done well. 

The cake was huge, and it was compared to one of the Red Rock formations in our area.  It consisted of three tiers, two single layers and one double layer; chocolate pudding sat in the middle of the bottom double layer and single middle layer; a layer of mini-marshmallows sat between the middle and top layers.  There were two types of frosting, first a vanilla buttercream, and after refrigerating the cake, I covered it with a vanilla whipped cream frosting.  Sprinkled cocoa powder went over the tops and sides; a sprinkle of chopped Andes candies and a few Oreo cream cookies finished off the topping.  Roy made a banner which I attached with wooden skewers.

So, Happy Birthday Kaiya, may you have many, many, many more, and always be happy and healthy.

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Here's the cake and frosting recipe, but for the vanilla frosting, I used vanilla powder instead of the cocoa powder.

Chocolate Cake with Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

Cake Batter:

1 ½ cups flour

3 Tbsp baking cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

1 cup sugar

2 tsp chocolate syrup

¾ cup milk

¾ cup melted butter

2 eggs

Frosting:

12 Tbsp butter, softened

3 cups confectioner’s sugar

½ cup baking cocoa powder

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 Tbsp room temperature milk

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350F.  Cut out two circles of parchment paper that fit within two 8” cake pans; spray cake pans with nonstick baking spray; line bottom with paper circles.

In a large bowl, sift flour and mix in cocoa, baking powder and sugar.  In second bowl, beat together syrup, milk, butter and eggs; do not get mixture frothy by over beating.  Pour wet ingredients into bowl of dry ingredients; mix on medium speed till smooth.  Pour half of batter into each cake pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes; until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out cleanly.  Let cakes cool before flipping out of pans; remove parchment paper before frosting cakes.

While cakes are baking, make the frosting; cream together the butter and sugar; add cocoa, vanilla extract and milk; mix until smooth, but do not over mix.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to firm up; frost cakes after they have cooled.  There will be enough frosting to frost the tops and sides of both cakes; stack cakes on top of one another; total height should be about 3 inches with frosting.

Makes 12 servings.

Mary Cokenour