Filling Tummies - Party Time . . . Chocolate Cake!!!

Our baby boy turned two this week (sniff, sniff), so I have been busy baking and decorating his birthday cake. The whole birthday cake ritual was a little tricky this year and didn't exactly go the way I would have liked. I was planning on making a chocolate cake with hazelnut and organic chocolate ganache and sparklers, but our little man had other ideas. In the exciting lead-up to his birthday he spent many hours examining every cake in the W/W Party Cake Book (a gift from a friend) and carefully analysing the lolly content of each and every cake. In the end I decided that his little heart would sink at the sight of a birthday cake devoid of lollies and with a slightly heavy heart I set off to the supermarket to purchase some supplies. I must admit though that little man was stoked with his cake and in the end that was what was most important to me on the day. Here is a picture of his "forklift" cake:

I really love baking the boy's birthday cakes and I do enjoy decorating them despite the ingredients. I think you really know that you are a Mum when you are up to your elbows in icing and desperately trying to turn a lopsided chocolate cake into Thomas the Tank Engine! The first birthday cake I ever made (as a Mum) was actually a rather sad moment for me though. We were allocated our eldest son when he was eleven months old, but we weren't able to unite with him in Ethiopia until the paperwork was finalised several months later. I really struggled during that last period of waiting and the thought of my darling baby being on the other side of the world for his first birthday was almost too much for me to cope with. Even though we weren't able to be with him on his first birthday, I still made him a cake (albeit tearfully) and froze a piece to give him when we arrived home.

Times have certainly changed though and I now have two beautiful boys who are very eager to help me with birthday cake baking and decorating. For my birthday cakes I use this fool-proof Delicious Chocolate Cake recipe that has become my firm favourite. It really is delicious and stays moist for days. The recipe originally came from my Mum's work colleague (thanks Michelle) and I have converted it for my thermomix(but it is still quite easy to work out using beaters etc).

Delicious Chocolate Cake:

Ingredients:
180g butter
tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
250g non-homogenised milk
4 tblsp organic cocoa
440g organic raw sugar
pinch of fine unrefined sea salt
250g organic plain flour
3 level tsp baking powder (I make my own in the thermomix with brown rice, bicarb and cream of tartar)

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
Grease a large tin ( I use a baking tin) and line with paper.
Melt butter in TMX bowl for 2 minutes, 80 degrees, speed 3.
Add vanilla, eggs and milk and stir for 20 seconds on speed 3.
Add cocoa, sugar, salt, flour and baking powder and mix for a further 40 seconds on speed 5 (scraping down sides of bowl if necessary).
Pour into tray and bake for 35-45 minutes. Delish!!!

Notes:
I haven't converted this recipe to include rapadura and spelt flour yet. I thought it was best not to experiment this time considering the cake was required the next day and I only had 4 eggs to work with. I think it would work nicely with modified amounts of spelt and rapadura though and will get it converted in time for our next family birthday.

Next year I am going to get organised and do the following:

* "do away" with food colouring and try some natural colouring methods. I know that a little beetroot juice can make beautiful shades of pink and purple without affecting the taste, but I wonder about making other colours? Perhaps I could play around with a little spinach for green?

* try milled rapadura as a substitute for organic raw "icing" sugar. We never have icing normally, but I will have to try it.

* buy some interesting chocolate moulds and make little organic chocolates to substitute for the lollies on the cakes. Perhaps some creepy crawlies would be fun!!