do you like chocolate cake?

Okay, ignoring the cardboard round that I decided not to cover with foil, doesn't this look delicious? Want to know what happens when you haven't made a cake in four years (yes, I said 4 years!) from scratch and you decide to say, change a few ingredients as you are making it? It's fun!

I sifted and measured, stirred and tasted. I used coconut oil instead of butter, and I used cake flour. Since I can't remember the last time I used cake flour I don't know how that affects things. I do know that my recipe calls for all-purpose flour, but I decided it would be fun to experiment. It was my birthday cake, after all!

Everything seemed to be going well until I put the batter in the pans. I forgot to scrape the bottom of the bowl before pouring, and at the bottom was a nice chocolatey syrupy gooey pool of goodness. So I poured it into both pans, evenly, in the center. Care to guess what happened next?

That's right, the center SUNK like a lead weight! The cakes were beautiful, smelled wonderful and I seriously thought about cutting the center out and calling it a chocolate angel food cake, but I knew no one would fall for it. So I frosted it instead!

It's also been four years since I made the most delicious chocolate buttercream frosting. I have dreams about how good that frosting was. I salivate just thinking about it. I melted my beautiful dark chocolate, mixed it all together and it just wasn't the same. Maybe the fact that I had three major interruptions while making the frosting had something to do with it, but it was very buttery, almost as if it didn't have enough sugar. So it looked great, mouth watering great, but tasted good. As I was eating it I remembered that four years ago I used cocoa powder in the buttercream instead of chocolate. It made it darker, richer, and oh so good.

So you know what I am going to do? You got it, I am making it again, maybe cupcakes, but I want that buttercream flavor that I remember, and I've been told that practice makes perfect!

I decided that since I can always make another cake I would give myself ten minutes to just be mad at the cake. And then I would frost it, eat it, and enjoy it! I had to use a lot of buttercream to fill in the gap betweein the two sunken cakes! And in the process the cake, which was almost crumbly, did its own thing. As we cut it, chunks will fall out of the cake. I don't think I will use coconut oil on the next one!

These are the beautiful tulips I received from my mom for my birthday. When we moved to Holland in 1975 it was very expensive to ship packages, so my grandfather would send my mother a bit of money to buy our birthday presents with. I remember on my 14th birthday I received 15 long stemmed beautiful pink roses. Every year until he passed away I would get roses. He died two weeks before I moved back to the US, and away from my family. Every year since then my parents have sent me tulips for my birthday. It's a nice tradition.

Have wonderful day. Enjoy!