A Special Birthday Cake

G1's girlfriend had a birthday last Monday and while he celebrated with her and her family on Monday, he wanted to do something special for her on Wednesday.

One of the things he wanted to do was bake and decorate a cake for her - by himself.

Mind you, the young man has never baked a cake let alone decorate one. I told him he could come over to the house on Tuesday and make it and I'd be there if he needed any help.

He used a recipe that I've had for awhile and have made with much success. You can find the complete recipe for the "Original WASC Cake" with tips here.

A cake mix is used as the base


with other ingredients added to it.


First the cake mix (any flavor - he chose chocolate) is mixed with 1 cup flour, 1 cup granulated sugar and a generous dash of salt. Use a whisk to mix it all together.

In a large mixing bowl stir together 1 cup sour cream, 1 cup water, 3 whole eggs and 1 tablespoon flavoring. NOTE: See the tips that are with the original recipe. My suggestion was to use 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla, 1 teaspoon butter flavoring and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract for a chocolate cake.


Once the wet ingredients are mixed together, add about half of the dry ingredients and blend together. Since he was using my (OLD) KitchenAid mixer I advised him to blend it on speed #2.

Then the other half of the dry ingredients are mixed in for 2 minutes. My advice was to mix it on the #4 setting of my mixer.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s). Bake it in a preheated 300 degree F. oven for 20 to 30 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. and continue baking for about an equal amount of time or until the top of the cake springs back when lightly touched. Of course you can also use the old method of inserting a toothpick in the center and if it comes out clean, it's time to remove the cake from the oven.

According to the tips from the recipe, if the cake has pulled away from the sides it is over baked.

G1 used my large cupcake pan. There was a little too much cake batter so that problem was solved by making some mini cupcakes in a mini muffin pan.


After the cake was baked, cooled and removed from the pan G1 mixed up three quarters of a batch of frosting because the original recipe makes a LOT of frosting!

The following ingredients are for a full batch of frosting. G1 is pretty good with math and didn't have trouble cutting the recipe down.

Cream 2 cups Crisco until fluffy. Add 8 cups confectioner's sugar and continue creaming until well blended.


Add 1/2 teaspoon salt


2 teaspoons vanilla (use clear vanilla if you want really white frosting) and 6 ounces heavy cream. NOTE: Using my suggestion, G1 mixed the vanilla with the cream before adding it to the Crisco/powdered sugar mixture.

Beat at high speed until frosting is fluffy. I think G1beat it about 3 or 4 minutes.

Since he was making a giant cupcake, he put half of the frosting in a another bowl. Then he added a couple of spoonfuls of cocoa powder to the frosting that was still in the mixer bowl and beat it into the frosting.

He used the chocolate frosting for the "paper cupcake liner". I showed him how to fill a disposable decorating bag and helped in with his choice of decorating tips. I also showed him how to hold the bag (not that he did it my way, but he got the job done) and how to pipe the frosting onto the cake.

Then he was on his own because I had some stuff to do in another room of the house.


Once he had the bottom of his cake done, I showed him how to put the second layer (or top) on using a big of frosting.

He wanted the top of the cake to be white and pink swirled together. The remaining white frosting was separated into two separate bowls. Pink coloring gel was mixed to one of the bowls of frosting and mixed in well. The white and pink frostings were then loaded into decorating bags and he was ready to go again.

First he went around the top with white frosting


Then he added the pink.

Once he was happy with the cake top he added some little pink, red and purple heart sprinkles.

Both he and I thought the cake turned out pretty well for a first timer's attempt.

G1's girlfriend liked her cake a lot.

And what's a birthday cake without candles and a wish?

Looks like her wish will come true.