The Best Chocolate Birthday Cake You Have Ever Made

Good morning to you!

In my honest opinion, the best birthday cake is homemade! 

Who doesn't like a homemade birthday cake?

Just the other day a friend of mine, Denise, asked me to make a birthday cake for an upcoming meeting she was attending where a couple of the members were going to be celebrating birthdays.
If there isn't one thing I like to bake next to making bread and cinnamon rolls and pie! it has to be birthday cakes. Not the fancy decorated ones that you'll find at a bakery just a simple layer cake made from scratch.

I went to look for my 'go-to' chocolate cake recipe. Since we have moved recently, and like all moves, it takes a while to find everything. Well, my chocolate cake recipe was one of them.  I couldn't locate my recipe. I searched through several of my cookbooks in hopes to find one that would be similar.
No luck. Then I looked through Pinterest for a chocolate cake recipe and actually found one that was called "The only chocolate cake recipe you'll ever need."

I gathered all the ingredients and started to make the cake.  As I was making the cake, the batter was runnier than I like (and the recipe did mention that) but  I thought 'what the heck, it'll be fine'. The cake(s) looked wonderful as they was baking, then.....the dreaded cake fail. The cakes fell. Ugh!

I've read where it has been suggested, by well known bakers, that if this happens you just fills the 'hole with frosting. Well, this 'hole' was too big to fill with frosting so that was out of the question. Into the trash it went.

So back to Pinterest I went to find a different chocolate cake recipe. The one I found was called
'THE BEST CHOCOLATE CAKE you have ever made.'  As I read through the recipe .... it seemed to be a simple enough recipe. (Note: where the recipe mentions using Bob's Red Mill flour, use Hudson Cream flour instead - if you can find it. Otherwise, sift your flour several times before measuring.)

I mixed up the cake, filled 3 - 9" pans with the velvety smooth and thick chocolate batter. Keeping my fingers crossed, I placed the pans in the oven and waited. 

This recipe didn't lie. It IS the best chocolate cake you have ever made recipe! These cakes were perfect! Look at these lovelies.

Now I had an idea of  how I wanted to decorate this cake. Nothing too fancy.
Have you seen those delicious cakes with the smooth frosted sides with chocolate ganache drizzled down the sides? That's what I wanted it to look like.

I have been wanting to try my hand at ganache and thought it would be easy enough.  I had in mind something kind of like this picture above. This is NOT how my cake looked but I had inspiration and high hopes that I could make a cake similar to how this one looks.

Well, I made the ganache while the first cake(s) were baking so by the time the second baking attempt to make a yummy layered cake(s) was done, the ganache had cooled down.  Not really thinking about it until I started to use the ganache. It was too thick.  It just sort of globbed down the sides of the cake instead of dripping down the sides. I'm thinking "now what?"

After a quick 15 seconds in the microwave, the consistency of the ganache was just right. As I spooned the warmed ganache over the slightly cooled ganache, my idea was not working out as I had envisioned. What the heck!  Maybe I'll just cover the whole cake with the ganache.  While trying to smooth the ganache out over the white buttercream frosting it all just started to blend and swirl together giving the frosting a marble look. Boo! I wasn't very happy.

I texted my daughter about my dilemma with the cake and the frosting and the ganache. She said, "call it a Swiss Cake Roll cake or a Ho Ho cake".  Great idea! A deconstructed Ho Ho cake. Isn't that what they do on those cooking shows? Deconstruct recipes? Ha!

So I finished frosting and smoothing out the cake the best I could with the ganache. The cake still looked blah and it needed a little something to dress it up a bit. Then I get a bright idea!
I'll ask Diane. Diane is the owner of The Flower Barn (which is a flower shop inside the business where I work). She's very creative. That morning on my way to deliver the cake, I stopped by work to ask Diane to help me give my cake a little pizzazz. 

 Here is what the cake looked like when I delivered it. Whala!

The Best Chocolate Cake you have ever made!

Denise saved me a piece! 

A slice of that Best Chocolate Cake.

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Years ago, when our kids were little, I'd tried to made most of  their birthday cakes. It was something my mom did when I was a little girl. Something I remember fondly. My mom had a little decorating cookbook from Betty Crocker that showed how to cut cakes to make them into different shapes. Like an elephant, little girl/boy, or butterfly or giraffe. I used that little cookbook to get ideas when it came to making my kids birthday cakes.

 Here are a few of the cakes I have made over the years that I actually have pictures of. 

Some of these pictures date back to the 1970's when all this girl had to take pictures with was a Polaroid Instant camera. 

One of my kid's birthday cake.

My friend Karen's 18th BD

Sarah's 7th year birthday cake.

Granddaughter's 3rd BD Red Velvet Cake

Easter Angel Food Cake

Roxie's Cherry Nut Cake

Contest winner! My Lemon Layered Cream Cake
(Deb's Birthday cake)

Even though I have made cakes and decorated cakes I do not consider myself cake decorator. I am a baker and as far as this chocolate cake recipe goes, it definitely is "a keeper". 

To help inspire me, my daughter gave me this cookbook for Mother's Day last year. You should definitely check this cookbook out. You can find it on Amazon here.

Cookbook for Mother's Day 2018

Here is an article I ran across about baking the perfect cake. It just might come in handy. 

How to Bake Perfect Cakes