I feel like this blog needs a bit more than just my knitting podcast show notes, so I’m going to try to be more intentional about including parts of the rest of my life too. With Dublin’s third birthday being this past weekend, I thought this would be a good opportunity!
I can’t believe this little boy is 3 already!
We don’t do big birthday parties , but we do celebrate with family and a special dinner. The birthday boy gets to pick his cake too. For his first birthday he didn’t have much say, but he loved Elmo, so I made Elmo cupcakes.
The second year he asked for airplanes, so I made him an airplane-themed cake.
This year he asked for a Chocolate and Vanilla (“Both, Mom. BOTH.”) Train Cake. So that’s what we did.
Because of Rome’s egg allergy, I pulled out my Egg-Free Cookbooks and set to work. For the Chocolate layer I made the Chocolate Cake recipe from Tabitha Elliott’s “The Egg-Free Cookbook”. It uses canned pumpkin but you absolutely cannot taste it. The cake was deliciously chocolatey.
*TIP: To store leftover canned pumpkin, put it in a plastic sandwich bag, spread flat, and freeze.*
For the vanilla layer, I made the variation option of the Yogurt Bismark Cake from Rosemarie Emro’s “Bakin’ Without Eggs”. The variation allows you to use a box cake mix that has the pudding in it, and Dublin asked so nicely for the Funfetti cake mix at the store, that I couldn’t say no.
I made both cakes in round Bundt pans and then sliced them in half through the middle to create two layers. I put icing on each of the bottom layers, and then switched the top layers of cake so that each slice would have both chocolate and vanilla (“Both, Mom. BOTH.”) I also cut sections out of each and placed them together to make the shape of the number 3.
I tinted some icing green (to look like grass) and covered the cake. Then I put Kit Kat bars around the 3 to look like train tracks. A plastic cake topper Thomas was the final touch, along with 3 candles. We kept the cake decorations a secret until we revealed it after dinner and he was so thrilled with it.
The chocolate cake was my favorite – it was delicious and also easy to cut and shape. The vanilla would have been great for just a one layer cake but wanted to fall apart as soon as I cut it. It needed a lot of help from repair icing and the freezer! But overall the baking was a success, everyone loved the cake, and Dublin thoroughly enjoyed his third birthday party!
Quillpen's Quips 