Happy First Birthday...

  ... to me! Well, to this blog, technically. Yep, one year ago today I sat down at my little dorm room desk and decided to start a blog. Actually, I'm almost surprised it was only a year ago! Even though I didn't start regularly posting until around last October, I still fee like I've been blogging FOREVER.

In honor of this very special day, I decided to bake a cake! And since I'm so very selfless ;) and because today happens to be the day we are celebrating my Grandpa's bday, I decided to give the cake to him! I get to bake a cake, you guys get a recipe, and my grandpa gets a cake. Everyone wins!

Also, here is a list of a few of my favorite posts over the past year. Check them out if you haven't already!

The very first post on this blog- aside from the "i'm starting a blog now!" post- talks about how to stock a good vegan kitchen.

This is one of the few recipes that I made up all by myself. It is seriously SO DELICIOUS.

I think some really awesome things came from my Halloween food post. The savory cheesecake is soooo good and can be made any time of the year!

It was really fun to put together this list of family traditions. If you have a blog, you should do one too! And then send my the link so I can check it out!

I hope you guys are as excited as I am about the new feature I started just a couple weeks ago :)

These are just a few of the 150 posts from the past 365 days :) and now... an uber chocolate cake recipe!

My gpa loves chocolate, and I love chocolate, so I went with a hershey's chocolate cake recipe and chocolate buttercream. yummy!

Start by preheating the over to 350 and greasing and flour-dusting two 9 inch cake pans.

Then mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Now add a couple eggs, some milk, oil, and vanilla and beat it at medium speed for two minutes.

Now stir in 1 cup boiling water. Then pour the batter into the two pans and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a knife comes out clean when stuck in the center. Cool the cakes, remove then from their pans, and then wrap and freeze then until you are ready to frost.

Now for the frosting, which I failed to take pics of while making.

Start by creaming 6 tbsp of butter. Then begin adding powder sugar a cup of a time, pouring in a bit of milk when it gets too dry. Once all the powdered sugar has been added, stir in some vanilla and then remove about 2 tbsp of frosting so that you can pipe on writing later.

Then add the cocoa powder and the last of the milk, if there's any left. you should have a nice, soft, thick buttercream.

I made a mini-cake since my gpa lives alone and probably wouldn't need a whole cake. I used a tupperware to measure a 6 in circle in both cake layers. The rest of the cake can be saved for cake pops/balls :)

Now it's time to frost! Line your serving plate with parchment paper to keep it clean, and then frost away :) frosting cakes is seriously like the bane of my existence- I hate doing it and I suck at it. I also suck at removing cakes from cake pans. Both of these problems can be attributed to the fact that when it comes to baking I'm very impatient. I never let my cakes cool nearly long enough before trying to take them out of their pans, and I hardly ever fully freeze my cakes before frosting them (which would make life so much easier). I also rarely chill cookie dough. It's a problem.

Anyways, because I suck at frosting cakes I'm not going to try and tell you how to do it. It's pretty basic anyhow.

Now decorate! You can do whatever you want, but I decided to just pipe on happy bday and some decorative dots in simple white frosting.

Here's the full recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa or HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Cocoa
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water
• ONE-BOWL BUTTERCREAM FROSTING (recipe follows)

Directions

1. 1 Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round pans or one 13x9x2-inch baking pan.
   
2. 2 Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of electric mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
   
3. 3 Bake 30 to 35 minutes for round pans, 35 to 40 minutes for rectangular pan or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. (Cake may be left in rectangular pan, if desired.) Frost with ONE-BOWL BUTTERCREAM FROSTING. 8 to 10 servings.
   
   
   ONE-BOWL BUTTERCREAM FROSTING
   6 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
   2-2/3 cups powdered sugar
   1/2 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa or HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Cocoa
   1/3 cup milk
   1 teaspoon vanilla extract
   
   Beat butter in medium bowl. Add powdered sugar and cocoa alternately with milk, beating to spreading consistency (additional milk may be needed). Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

You can find the copy of the recipe here, as well as high altitude conversions.

Happy birthday to Girl of a Thousand Faces! And to my wonderful grandpa! Have a great saturday :)

<3
Em