My Little Pony Cake

This weekend I had a challenge with this cake.  I'm overall satisfied with the cake, however, I know that it's not the original plan I had.

It all happened when the top tier ended up lopsided. : /... Never a good thing.  Then, the sprinkle method I decided to used didn't go as great as expected.  Finally, my fondant that I wanted to use to cover the bottom tier was all dry and crumbly - then I had no way of salvaging it (trust me, I tried).

However, with all that, I'm still satisfied - could have been better but happy with all that happened.

Recipe time!! So, the cake itself is CHOCOLATE! This is the best chocolate recipe I have found and everyone loves it!! Coffee is it's secret ingredient!! (Just like the red velvet recipe I use ;) ).  The title of this recipe is actually "The Best Chocolate Cake."  Click the link to find the recipe.  Here are a few pictures of the process.

I don't use the "King Arthur Flour Black Cocoa" and it's still great, so this is definitely optional.  The cake is so moist and chocolaty, definitely for chocolate lovers.

Sift the flour first.  So easy to do it on parchment paper!

Here is what I mean about spooning to measure the flour.  Remember, you don't want "packed" flour.

 

All the dry ingredients mixed together

Buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla all mixed together in my Pyrex cup.

Once I beat in the buttermilk mix with the dry ingredients.  Note, I do the coffee second since I use my Pyrex cup for this (maybe soon I'll invest in a second measuring cup :) )

The coffee mixed in the measuring cup (I don't really clean out the buttermilk first - it all goes in the same place! lol)  Notice the batter is now very runny - this is ok, no worries!

 

Finished cakes!! So, My middles usually sink in, anyone know why?  Do they need to stay in longer - then I'm afraid they'll burn or be too dry.

Also, I used deeper pans so more batter in each pan I use the Wilton chart for help on this.  The recipe itself make about 5 1/3 cups of batter.  I made the recipe 3 times.  Took about 40-45 to bake up.

My homemade cake drum!  I use Elmer foam board and measure the cake pan to make the circle.  This one is 4 boards taped together then wrapped in cake foil.  Then it needed to pop, so I found this duck tape I bought on clearance a while ago.  It definitely did the trick (I may do this more often!)

 I tried to make a marshmallow fondant (this is the dry one I made : /).  Maybe it didn't work out because the marshmallows were store brand and a little old.  I'll try the recipe again with better marshmallows, maybe it'll do the trick.  If it does, I will definitely post that recipe up later.

I then made this buttercream recipe and chocolate buttercream recipe.  I love the chocolate buttercream recipe because its so simple and I've gotten a few compliments on it so I'll stick to it.  I also recently discovered it can also be made with white chocolate (next time I'll try this!!).  This was a new buttercream recipe I was trying out.  I always feel homemade buttercream has too much of a gritty - powdered sugar taste. Kids love it though.  I'm just trying to find one that is more "store like."  I guess I'll stick with store kind or keep trying different ones.  If you have any that you love, leave a comment below. :) Wish I remembered to take pictures of the chocolate buttercream process, it's actually pretty cool.  But check out the link for pictures there.  I did take on of the buttercream though. Enjoy!

This was quite fluffy and creamy.  The birthday girl, however, said it was yucky.  She wanted ALL chocolate.  Her brother said it was good as gold. Go figure lol.  

What do you think?  Comment below.  I've also discovered I a lot better at "girly" cake than little dude cakes.  This weekend I get to work on ninja turtle cake.  Wish me luck!

Enjoy! and comment below :)