It was my brother‘s birthday on Saturday, so I decided to bake a cake. I’ve been purchasing birthday cakes lately, which is fine, but I actually like baking cakes, you know? So when I saw this great cake recipe on Coconut & Lime, I decided to bake away. It’s a Vanilla Bean Layer Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting. It uses vanilla paste, which I was all into when I found it several years ago at Trader Joe’s. The only problem was I could never figure out what to do with it. Problem solved!
The recipe calls for 8-inch round pans, but I only had 9-inch pans, which meant I didn’t have quite enough frosting. I did a sort of crumb layer (you smear a thin layer of frosting on the cake then chill it, so you end up with a smooth surface for the final layer of frosting. That way you don’t get the mini crumbs and cake chunks in your frosting, which often happens to me), and while the cake was chilling, I made half a batch of frosting from the back of the Hershey’s Special Dark Dutch-Process Cocoa can. I then mixed that with the remainder of the chocolate cream cheese frosting, and yay, I had enough, and it was very chocolatey. The cake itself is very moist (even with nonfat milk) and has a really nice vanilla essence to it. This one’s definitely a keeper!
Ooh…yummy! We missed you Saturday night!!
Yum, that looks so good! Now I just have to get myself some cake pans…
Wow it looks so yummy!!
mmmmm. cake. love the tiny boat in the middle.
Yeah cake!
I finally finished the Blue velvet cake I made just in time to make ice cream and sorbet tonight. Cooking desserts is the most fun!
Those blue sparkles make it!
Omigosh, that looks great.
looks delicious. and i’m more of a pie person myself. Thanks for sharing
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm……….
And I’m totally in the mood for chocolate right now.
Maybe I’ll bake a cake this weekend. My husband would be floored!
Looks delicious!
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