Everyone's Favorite Birthday Cake - Baked Occasions - Baked Sunday Mornings

This week I went rogue instead of making the Icebox Towers that were scheduled I made Everyone's Favorite Birthday Cake from Baked Occasions. I made this in honor of my grandfather's 90th birthday on Thursday. I have always enjoyed the combination of yellow cake with chocolate frosting, probably because it was a combination that my dad liked so Mom would make it often. I was looking forward to trying this version since I am a big fan of the Baked layer cake recipes.

Before I attempted making this one I decided to look at how the other bakers from Baked Sunday Mornings had fared with this recipe when they made it in August of 2015. If you are interested in what the others thought you can find their links here. From these reviews I discovered that several of the bakers were not a fan of the cinnamon that was included in the cake batter. The combination of cinnamon and chocolate was not something most of the bakers appreciated. I know in past experience I have not been a fan of that combination either, so I chose to not include the cinnamon and instead put a tablespoon of vanilla flavoring in the cake batter.

A few of the reviewers also said they felt the cake was a little dry. While I was looking at the recipe in the book there was a note about alternative ingredients for the sour cream. The notes talked about substituting buttermilk and a little melted butter, and it stated that when this is done the cake may be a little bit softer. I decided to try this substitution and see if that helped the consistency of the cake.

I was very pleased with the results. The cake was moist and delicious, and the frosting was very simple, like a very traditional buttercream. I am not accustomed to the cream cheese being included in a chocolate frosting. It is good, but probably not my favorite combination for chocolate. After a few bites the tang of the cream cheese was not how I prefer to eat my chocolate cake. I would make the cake again, but I would probably change up the frosting and take out the cream cheese.

The boys really enjoyed the cake and seemed to like the frosting quite a bit too. We enjoyed making birthday cards and celebrating Great Grandpa even though we couldn't celebrate the day with him.

To find out what the other bakers thought about the Icebox Towers check out Baked Sunday Mornings here.