AuburnChick's Adventures

Today is Rooster’s 15th birthday.  He’ll be getting his drivers permit on Tuesday.  Look out world…another Chicklet will be on the roads!

It’s also the day we have designated as Molly’s birthday.  She’s two years old.

To celebrate, I made two cakes…one for human consumption and one for the dogs.

The tradition in this family is that every birthday cake is comprised of white cake with chocolate frosting.  However, ever since I made a Chocolate Chip Cake for Thanksgiving, it’s become Rooster’s favorite.  And that’s what he requested for his birthday this year.

Here’s the recipe, originally posted by Sunshine’s Mom on KnittingHelp.com.

Chocolate Chip Cake

Duncan Heinz Butter cake mix
1 small package Jello instant vanilla pudding
1/2 bar grated chocolate (I usually use German chocolate – it’s in a green package)
chocolate chips
1 cup oil
1 cup milk
4 eggs
A bundt pan

(Let me just say to start – grating the chocolate is the most time consuming part of this cake. I’ve found that using a zester instead of a grater works so much better. In any event, grate your chocolate first before doing anything else and you’ll be happy you did.)

With mixer, beat together cake mix, vanilla pudding, oil and eggs. Fold in grated chocolate. Put half of mixture into bundt pan, add enough chocolate chips to your liking, put rest of mixture on top (and maybe a few more chocolate chips?) Make sure chocolate chips are pushed into the top layer of cake mix. Lick the spoon, bowl and detach and lick the mixer blades, seriously. It’s that good.)

Bake at 350 deg. for an hour or until inserted knife or toothpick comes out clean. Let it cool in the bundt pan (I can’t stress this enough!). Once cool, tip over onto plate and cover with powered sugar if you wish.

I don’t have a bundt cake pan, so I use an angel food cake pan instead.

Rooster, in his excitement about a hot cake straight from the oven, ate a piece before anyone else…forgetting that we had yet to put candles on it and sing Happy Birthday.  Hence, the missing piece in the picture below:

I didn’t want the dogs to feel left out, so I decided to bake Molly a cake.  I visited Google for a recipe and found this site.  The only substitution I made was Almond Extract.  I didn’t know I was out of the vanilla until I began digging around in the pantry.

Here’s what the cake looked like after I put the candles on it:

I think Molly knew it was for her.  She was so excited when she saw me carrying it around and could not stop smiling!  You do know that dogs can smile, don’t you?

We sang Happy Birthday and helped her blow out the candles.  Then, we divided the cake into thirds and gave each dog a piece.

I think it’s safe to say they liked it.

Filed under: children, Pets | Tagged: birthday, cake |