TALE OF TWO CAKES

A friend of mine S, had her baby shower last month, and so I decided to bake her a special cake for her special day!
However, as soon as I accepted the invite with a response saying, “I am so there and will bring cake”, I panicked!! I had never baked a “real” cake before. Sure there have been experiments with some upside down pineapple cakes, and some scary looking Halloween cakes, where am sure you could guess at this point which part of it was scary ;)

But as this friend is one of the nicest people I know, I was determined to rise to the occasion. No pun intended {-)
Well, finally the cake did get made. I definitely cheated a bit by using some instant karma err mix. I found this super simple recipe in the book “The Magic of Microwave Cookbook”. My favorite part of the book is a 1977 hand written message from a mother who apparently gifted this book to her daughter. It goes something like this “Forget what you ever knew about cooking. Relax, and have fun! Love always – Mother”. Sound advice indeed!

Chocolate Pudding Cake Recipe
For the Cake:
Ingredients
1 package chocolate pudding
1 package (9 ounces) chocolate cake mix (I used moist cake mix)

Method
Prepare pudding according to package directions. Spray the baking dish (12X8 inch) with cooking butter/oil spray. Pour pudding in a baking dish. Prepare cake mix according to package directions. Pour over pudding. Microwave 10 minutes on High, or until a wooden pick inserted in the cake center comes out clean. Once cooled, remove from the baking dish and cover with chocolate frosting.
You can purchase a chocolate frosting package, or prepare it yourself. I also added a little drizzle of cream mixed with sugar syrup on the top to add some color.

For the Chocolate Frosting:
Ingredients
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 tablespoon water
1/3 cup butter
3 tablespoons light cream
1 teaspoon vanilla essence (optional)
2 to 21/2 cups confectioner’s sugar

Method
Combine chocolate and water in a bowl. Microwave 30 seconds on high, or until chocolate melts. Stir until smooth. Mix in butter, cream, and vanilla essence. Beat in sugar until frosting reaches a desired consistency (enough to be able to spread over the cake).

Now the moment of truth: I started out with the ambitious idea of preparing this spectacular cake, which Keiko created. Since my cake wasn’t even close to what she whipped up, I purchased a cake from Trader Joe’s to accompany my chocolate pudding cake (as a backup ;), and topped it with white chocolate shavings and fresh organic roses. All in all the cake episode ended well, with the cake I prepared tasting good, and the cake I purchased and decorated at home, looking great!!

Chocolate Cake from Trader Joe's (decorated at home)