Pete's birthday cake

It's Pete's birthday on Thursday and he's actually home for it this year. When I was helping my daughter-in-law with the girls on Monday night, feeding, getting to bed, folding washing, hanging out washing, dishes etc, I told Annika (Miss 4) that it was Grandpa Pete's birthday. Her eyes lit up and she immediately said, "are we going to make him a cake?" I said I'd make the cake and we'd have the birthday tea at her place, since little Tamara goes to bed between 5 and 5.30pm.  Anyway, yesterday we picked Annika up in the morning, went to the supermarket, bought another round cake tin and the pre-made Betty Crocker Chocolate Frosting, M & M's and and candles, the numbers 5 and 6, to make 56.

Home we went and cake making began. I didn't have that much patience cooking with my own kids when they were little, and have even less now, preferring to just get in and get it done. So, I suggested to Miss Annika she may like to watch Finding Nemo, for the 101st time - she thought that was a great idea and so did I. Grandpa Pete kindly offered to watch it with her. I used a Mudcake recipe my sister-in-law always made for her boys birthdays - lovely and moist. It has a cup of strong coffee (not as a nephew discovered, a cup of strong coffee granules, but an actual cup of coffee made strong) in it - so I got Pete to make that as I don't like coffee or really know how to use the coffee machine.

The recipe is as follows:-

Chocolate Mud Cake

2 eggs - lightly beaten
1 cup strong coffee
1/2 cup oil (I use canola)
1 cup milk with 1 tsp vinegar added - it curdles it.
1 tsp vanilla essence

Sift dry ingredients into larger bowl
1 3/4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
salt

Add wet ingredients to dry and beat until smooth. This is a very runny mixture. Line a round tin and bake at 180 degrees for approx 1 hr, depending on your oven, I check after 45 mins.

Once cooled, cut the cake in half - spread with jam and cream, or frosting and put other half on top. Frost and decorate however you like.

I made two of these cakes, (we ended up only using one cake as they were quite large) as we decided to make it into a cake with a surprise in the middle and cut a circular hole in the middle of two of the layers, leaving one layer intact. Once three of the layers were frosted together, we filled the hole with M & M's, which then spill out (theoretically) when the cake is cut into.  With the circular piece cut out of the middle, we made Annika a little cake of her own, even with a little hole in the middle, stuffed with M & M's.

The cake was a hit with Miss Annika and we adults weren't too disappointed either. We had Pete's birthday dinner a day early as he and I are off to Cirque du Soleil, Avatar at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on his actual birthday and we are both really looking forward to it.

2 comments Baking, Birthday party, Cooking, family