Number cake

My son had his birthday this week. He had a decently big party a few days earlier. But there was no way I was not having a cake cutting for him on the actual day of his birthday. I therefore decided to make a 3-D number cake for him. My neighbor's son's birthday was a day after my son's birthday. He turned six. I decided to make a surprise number cake for him too. So there I was wanting to make two cakes. But was I about to bake two cakes??? No way!! I was going to bake one cake and make 2 cakes out of it! I always wanted to try out the zebra cake! I decided to make a zebra cake in a 13x 9 pan with the flavors of vanilla and chocolate. I then carved out the numbers out of it.The cakes were going to be small. I did a number 3 for my son and a number 6 for my neighbor.I got the ideas for the 3-D number cakes from here.

 I used a 8-inch cake board for each one of them. I even managed to get a few slices for us to eat! I like mine without the icing.

Being that it was a week-day, I did not have too much time on my hands. I decided to use store-bought frosting. Being that the store-bought frosting is thin, and I didn't have too much time to harden the frosting in the fridge, it was a slightly messy affair. How do I fix it?? I decided to decorate the cake with M& Ms to take away the attention from the messy frosting job! Well it was a success. I iced my son's cake with vanilla frosting and since my neighbor's was the next day, I mixed the rest of the frosting with some cocoa powder and iced his # 6, left it in the freezer and next day decorated it with M& Ms! That's why his cake was not melting!!

Overall, my son was happy and my neighbor's son was pleasantly surprised! All that ends well!

Servings: 4-6 per cake

Ingredients:

Flour: 1 1/2 cups
Baking powder: 1 tsp
Salt: 1/4 tsp
Sugar: 1 cup
Butter: 1 cup
Vanilla extract: 1 tsp
Eggs: 3 large
Milk :1/4 cup
Cocoa powder: 2 tbsp
Vanilla frosting: 1 1/2 cup
Chocolate frosting: 1 1/2 cup 
M & Ms: 1 big packet

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.

Grease the bottom only of a 13x 9 pan and keep aside.

Mix together flour, baking powder and salt and keep aside.

Add 2 tbsp cocoa powder to 1/4 cup milk at room temperature. Mix well and keep aside.

Using an electric beater, cream sugar and butter until smooth. Add eggs one by one and beat well.Add vanilla and mix well. Now add in the dry ingredients little at a time, mixing well in between. Be careful not to overmix!

Divide the batter equally into two bowls. To one bowl add the cocoa powder and milk mixture. Mix well.

Now in the center of the pan pour 2 tbsp of chocolate mixed batter. On the center of this one pour 2 tbsp of vanilla cake mix .

Now do the same with the chocolate mixture again. Keep repeating this process until all the batter has been used up!

Place the pan on the center rack of the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick tester comes out clean.

Take the cake out of the oven and let it sit in the pan for 30 mins before taking it out.

I placed a wooden cutting board on top of it and inverted the pan. Let the cake cool down completely before attempting to carve out the numbers.

Since I had to make both the number three and the number six, I needed 3 circles. I used the lid of the Pillsbury frosting to  carve out 3 round pieces of the cake.

I then used a small bottle cap to carve out the center of the round cake to make a donut.

For the number three, I cut out 1/4 the of the circle from one donut and 1/3 rd from the other. I now put the two pieces together on the cake board to make number 3.

For number six, I cut 1.5 inch wide and 6 inch long rectangle from the leftover cake. I attached it to the side of the donut to make number 6.

I then frosted the number 3 with vanilla buttercream frosting and number 6 with chocolate frosting.

I put them in the fridge for 2-3 hours to firm up.

My kids then helped me decorate it with lots of M & Ms!!

The number cakes were ready!

Do try it. It is lots of fun! I am bringing this to  Simple Supper Tuesday at hun whats for dinner.

Cooking made easy:

You could use store-bought plain round cake and carve out the numbers from that.

You could use store-bought frosting to do a crumb coating and then stick the M & Ms to make it pretty!

Tip for healthy living:

Serve and eat desserts in very small portion. That ways you would have satisfied your sweet tooth without abusing your body.

Food for thought:

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. Edith Wharton