Well, it's not going to win any Prettiest Cake awards...



...but this is a much better cake than the last one I made.

I had some leftover raspberry buttercream in the freezer following the making of Kara's birthday cake and knew from experience that pairing lemon cake with it again would be a mistake, so I decided to look into chocolate cake recipes. I was able to find a recipe for vegan chocolate cupcakes which I made the batter for and poured into a cake pan. After the resultant cake cooled, I halved it vertically, frosted the bottom half, then added the top half and finished frosting. The cake itself is really good (and I don't like cake); it's not too chocolaty, not too sweet and it's moist without being dense. The frosting is much better with this cake than with the lemon cake. I think it's because having the two tart flavours paired makes everything come across as too sweet, whereas having the tart frosting paired with the slightly bitter chocolate flavour balances out nicely.

I will not make this icing again (I think I'll experiment further with the mock whipped cream recipe in my Friendly Food cookbook). If I make the cake again, I'll try to remember to double the recipe and bake two layers to slice — having a top layer made from the domed top portion of a cake makes it less visually impressive than it tastes.

Looks like I'll have me-friendly birthday cake this year!