A few weeks ago I agreed to make a cake to celebrate my cousin going off to college for the first time. She had worked very hard in high school and landed an amazing scholarship to go to Shippensburg University. I wanted to give her a good send off since we were all so proud and assured her that I would make her an awesome cake to celebrate.

I recently watched and episode of Barefoot Contessa in which she made a hot pink, 3 tiered birthday cake and I wanted the chance to try out that recipe. From the beginning, I decided that I would use the colors of Shippensburg University, red and dark blue, instead of the hot pink the recipe called for.

I pulled the recipe off of Foodnetwork.com and read the reviews. Overall, the cake flavor got positive reviews but about half of the comments said something about the cake being dry. Since I had never made this recipe before and only half the comments mentioned the cake being dry I decided to make the cake according to the recipe and see for myself.

I modified the cake tiers according to the size of pans I had on hand. I made two 9 inch cakes and one 6 inch cake from the batter. My plan was to have a large and high bottom tier and a smaller top tier. Butter, flour and line the pans with parchment paper.

Cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer on medium-high speed for about 5 minutes. This will feel like a really long time but you will see the mixture get really fluffy, light and sparkly.

Add the eggs two at a time and mix well. Mix in the sour cream, lemon zest and vanilla.

In a separate bowl mix together the dry ingredients. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet and mix just until combined, be careful not to over-mix it can make the cake tough instead of light.

Pour the batter into the prepared baking pans and bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

While the cakes are cooling, out of the pans, mix up the icing. I like this icing recipe, it has good flavor and it makes a lot so you don’t have to worry about having enough for the sides of the cake.

Once the icing is mixed, add in your color of choice. I divided up the icing and mixed up red, blue and left some white for decoration.

Blue.

“Red” more very hot pink.

White.

Now, frost that baby! Slide wax paper under the bottom cake layer as you ice ice it. This will protect the plate from getting icing all over it and looking like a mess. Once you’re finished frosting, simply pull out the wax paper. This also means you don’t have to be so neat and careful!

Frost the bottom layers.

Then cut the 6 inch cake in half horizontally and icing those layers.

Use a piping bag to decorate. Here is my finished product:

In my head it looked much more professional, clearly I need to work on my cake decorating skillz. But now for the most important part, taste. The cake tasted great but unfortunately, I agree with the comments that it was dry. Next time I will add either more sour cream or some buttermilk and see if that helps. The lemon zest in the cake was fantastic, it really balanced out the sweetness of the icing and made it possible to eat more than three bites of cake without your teeth hurting.

I can’t wait for another excuse to try this recipe out again.

Sidenote: The blue icing was a little…off putting, to say the least. If I were doing it again, I would have iced the cake in white and added blue and red accents, blue food just isn’t a good thing. Lesson learned.

Here’s the recipe from Foodnetwork.com:

Birthday Cake

Ingredients

I’m always trying to use up over-ripe bananas. I’d qualify myself as a banana snob, I prefer bananas when then have a tiny bit of green still left on them or when they’re completely yellow, as soon as I see brown I just can’t get myself to eat them. I will use brown bananas in bread or cake though, the browner the better!

I had been saving 4 bananas in my fridge for a few days, waiting for the time to make something and trying to make a decision about what to make. I’ve already done the banana bread and I like it but those go really fast in our house. I grew up eating banana cake, my mom would make it with chocolate fudge frosting and it was so good. With that cake in mind I decided to make banana cupcakes with chocolate frosting, then they would be portable for me to pack in my lunch.

Once I decide to make something, I begin with research. Even if I have a recipe for it, I go online and search for a new one just to make sure I have the best possible recipe out there. The last time I baked a banana cake, the recipe was too dry and the banana bread recipe I used recently was really good so I searched for something similar.

To start, mash up your bananas with a fork. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and combine the wet ingredients in your mixer until well combined. Add the banana to the wet ingredients, mix well. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix just until combined.

Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 of the way full with batter.

Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted, comes out clean.

While the cupcakes are cooling, mix up the chocolate frosting. I’ve tried a few different frostings over the years but my favorite one, because of the fudge flavor and the simplicity, is the one on the back of the Hershey’s Cocoa Powder container. It is called the “Prefectly Chocolate” chocolate frosting. (Another recipe I picked up from my mom!)

Melt butter and mix it with the cocoa powder. Add powdered sugar and milk, alternating and then add vanilla. Mix well in an electric mixer and voila!

Once the cupcakes are completely cool, top with the frosting. Use a knife to spread it or a pastry bag to pipe the icing on. I like to pipe on the icing because its faster, you can put more icing on and it looks pretty.

Serve with a glass of milk. I love chocolate and banana, its such a perfect combination. There are alot of banana cake recipes that pair the cake with vanilla cream cheese frosting. I’m sure its good but I don’t think it holds a candle to banana with chocolate frosting.

Here are the recipes from AllRecipes.com and Hersheys.com:

“PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE” CHOCOLATE FROSTING

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
2/3 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency.
Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.