Jessica's Birthday Cake!

One of my very best most beautiful friends (Jessica) just turned 26 and we decided to celebrate her birthday by hanging out at Mozarts and going back to my place to make her a delicious birthday cake!

My lovely friend:


We decided to use the Best Chocolate Cake Ever recipe, but instead of using all-purpose flour, we went crazy and used the finer cake flour! Wild!



The result was a very bouncy cake - something that Bill Cosby would be proud to use in his Jello commercials. The cake also had a little dip in it where the cake collapsed - I'm thinking this is also due to using cake flour.



I ended up trying a new frosting recipe for this cake too - it's a delicious chocolate frosting from Hershey's:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract



Their directions:
1. Melt butter (did this is the microwave for about 30-45 seconds).

2. Stir in cocoa (I didn't use special dark chocolate cocoa- just the regular stuff).

3. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency (this was a little difficult because of the small amount of milk that was called for). Add small amount additional milk, if needed (didn't need to do that).

4. Stir in vanilla (I don't remember doing this step...).

We covered it in marbled-ish purple fondant with little white hearts.

Making fondant purple:



Little white hearts cut out with my exacto:


Paste the hearts on the cake:


Take out a slice (or three):


HAPPY BIRTHDAY!