Yesterday we celebrated my son’s 11th birthday. Even though he had school, we had a great breakfast and dinner together. It’s funny how he can be so excited about turning eleven and I can be so sad he’s growing up.
And while this cake looks like a chocolate feast with all the Hershey extras and chocolate icing, this is the Best Yellow Birthday Cake. It had such an amazing smell while baking and came out with the perfect texture. We loved it and I believe will become my new yellow go-to cake. I loved the icing too, such a rich flavor, however you must let it cool or it will be runny…but it’s fantastic in taste. Because of how this cake was decorated, a thinner icing was not an issue. I guess it just depends what you are making.
If you follow along on Instagram, you saw our morning began with celebration cinnamon rolls. It’s nice to have the kids start the day with something special and the cinnamon rolls definitely did the trick.
Two presents, but ones he wanted badly. A game for his hand held PlayStation Vita and the Kindle Fire HD (I wish I had one). Spoiled alert! But he’s such a good boy, he deserves them. Needless to say he was very excited.
The inspiration for this cake came from my other son’s birthday cake last year. However, this guy is an absolute lover of Hershey’s Bars and Hershey’s Kisses. Jon has always been a very picky eater (not to mention he is allergic to so many things) and Hershey’s has always been his chocolate of choice.
So when he said he wanted a cake similar to his brother’s, but with Hershey’s chocolate, I had to make it happen. Needless to say, he was ecstatic when he came from school and saw his cake.
I found the recipe printed out with lots of scribbles on it in one of my dessert binders. I have no idea where it’s from or who to credit for this lovely recipe. It’s easy to make and fun to eat. Perfect for tweens and teenagers as it’s quite dramatic in looks.
I’m glad I decided to do yellow, chocolate flavor would have been too much with all the extra candy.
I guess it’s just too much to ask for one picture where everyone is smiling, looking ahead or acting normal. But I guess this is normal.
The cake is truly handsome, don’t you think?
Best Yellow Birthday Cake with Chocolate Icing
Ingredients
- cooking spray
- 2-1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 3-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1-1/4 cups milk
- vegetable oil
- 8 Tablespoons butter, softened
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs
Chocolate Icing
- 1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons cornstarch; packed
- 7 Tablespoons cocoa
- 7 Tablespoons butter, divided
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Cut parchment paper to fit the bottom of two 8-inch round pans. Spray each of the pans with cooking spray and place parchment in the pans and spray the paper.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer or other large mixing bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
- Measure the 1-1/4 cups of milk in a cup glass measuring cup, then add enough vegetable oil to bring the liquid up to 1-1/3 cups. (Make sure this measurement is accurate as they are very close to each other.)
- Add the milk mixture, butter and vanilla to the flour mixtu3 and beat on medium-high for two minutes. Add the eggs and beat another two minutes. Divide batter evenly into prepared pans.
- Bake cake for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool on wire racks for 20 minutes, then run a knife around the pans edge to loosen cakes. Remove from pans and cool completely.
- For the icing, in a large 10-12" sauce pan, combine, sugar, cornstarch, cocoa, 1 Tablespoon butter and salt. Pour 1-1/2 cups boiling water into pan and begin whisking.
- Turn on med-low flame and continue to whisk until mixture thickens, about 3-4 minutes. Whisk in remaining 6 Tablespoons of butter and vanilla.
- Remove from heat and let cool completely. This icing thickens as it cools as does best in the refrigerator when firming up.
- Ice cake and decorate if you like.