So Erik requested a chocolate birthday cake with chocolate frosting this year. First he said he thought I should buy him a cake from a bakery because we were both so pleased with the cake he bought me for my birthday. However, I decided I was perfectly capable of baking and frosting a cake all by my self. Why on earth would I pay a baker for that! So I did. I used a recipe from America's Test Kitchen and I got going. It took me just a little over an hour from start to finish of the cake portion of the recipe. I cleaned up the kitchen and enjoyed the smell of the cake while I cleaned. The kitchen was spotless and the cakes were done. PERFECT!
Then I realized I would need to make the icing. So I got everything back out and waited for the cakes to cool. I pulled out the recipe for the icing and got mixing. I think I used every piece of measuring equipment I had in the kitchen. This frosting recipe was a beast. I had to use the double boiler, the kitchen aid, and ice bath for the kitchen aid bowl, and a number of other stirring utensils to achieve the perfect texture of the chocolate icing. DONE.
Then came assembling the cake. I used my brand new cake plate from Sur La Table and frosted the cake just as they did on the demonstration. I let it chill after frosting layer one and did a second layer so it would be thick and rich.
My point in all of this was to set out to prove that I could make a cake just as good as the bakery cake. The results:
A cake way better than a cake from the bakery. It was moist and fluffy, but didn't fall apart. The cake was just sweet enough to offset the semisweet chocolate frosting. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I could have done it any better. I'm convinced that baking has mostly to do with one's ability to follow directions (assuming you have basic kitchen knowledge).
