Days pass slowly, but years fly by fast.

Before I know it, we have entered into tenth year of our marriage. We celebrated our 9th Wedding Anniversary last week. I can’t believe it, really!

At times, it feels like we got married just yesterday. And at other times, it feels as if we have been together forever. But at all times, it feels good :)

I feel happy and lucky in getting such a great partner. My husband is luckier in this matter, his spouse is so much better than mine ;-).

And what better way to celebrate than baking a cake?

The only way is to bake TWO cakes. And that’s exactly what I did.

The Hershey’s ‘Perfectly Chocolate’ chocolate cake is one of my go-to recipes.

The stick couple design is inspired from Sugar Dot Cookies. Check out the site for a great collection of cute cookies!

My piping skills aren’t great, so my friend helped me in drawing the figures and with the decoration.

I soaked the cake in mocha syrup, but the flavour wasn’t very prominent in the cake. The cake itself is moist and very soft. So you have to take care not to use too much of syrup as it might drench and break the cake.

Now, I am preparing myself for baking more cakes. A lot of birthdays in the family (my mother’s, my son’s and my husband’s) fall on the week after Christmas. Hope the cakes turn out well! 

Recipe Source: Hershey’s Kitchens

Makes: 2 X 9″ cakes

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour               :       1 3/4 cups
• Sugar                                      :        2 cups
• Cocoa                                     :        3/4 cup
• Baking powder                   :        1 1/2 tsp
• Baking soda                         :        1 1/2 tsp
• Salt                                          :        1 tsp
• Vegetable Oil                      :         1/2 cup
• Milk                                        :         1 cup
• Vanilla essence                  :          2 tsp
• Eggs                                        :          2
• Boiling water                      :          1 cup

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Grease two 9″ baking pans and line with parchment paper.
2. Boil two cups of water and keep aside. We will measure out one cup and use it for the cake.
3. In a big bowl, whisk flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt (all the dry ingredients). Whisk till no lumps of cocoa remain. Make a well in the centre.
4. Add the slightly beaten eggs, milk, oil and vanilla essence. Whisk until well mixed and no dry lumps remain.
5. Measure out one cup of hot water and add to the batter. Mix well until it forms a thin batter.
6. Pour half the into each of the greased pans and bake for about 40 minutes. If its not done by then (skewer inserted in the middle should come crumb free), bake for some more time, checking every five minutes whether the skewer comes out crumb free or not.
7. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then let it cool in a cooling rack.
8. I baked in two deep 6″ pans. I got 4 cup cakes as well.

Assembling the cake:

Icing, Filling and Decoration:

• 1/2 a packet (of a 1 ltr pack) of whipped topping (non diary whipped cream)
• Grated chocolate for decorating
• Melted chocolate for piping
• Sugar sprinkles

Syrup:

• 2 tbsp powdered sugar
• 1 tsp instant coffee powder
• 1/4 cup water

Method:

1. Keep the cream in the fridge until required.
2. Mix everything for the syrup together until sugar is dissolved. Keep aside.
3. Whip the cold cream with a tablespoon of powdered sugar. Whip using an electric mixer until the cream holds stiff peaks.
4. Do not over beat, or else the cream might split.
5. I baked these in 6″ pans, so the cakes were taller than it usually is in a 9″ pan. So I went on to make two different cakes, but you can go for a single tall cake – your call! The top was flat, so I didn’t have to cut off any dome.
6. Cut each cake into two. Sprinkle the coffee syrup on both slices. Don’t soak the cakes, just sprinkle on top of the cake.
7. I used whipped cream as filling for both the cakes, taking care to leave some space around the edges. Else when you stack the next layer on top, it will squash the filling out. I will be trying custard cream filling the next time!
8. Frost the top and the sides with whipped cream. I kept the cakes in the fridge while getting the chocolate ready.
9. Grate the chocolate or using a knife scrape off/peel chocolate from one end. Microwave the grated chocolate and once cool, put them in ziplock or the milk cover that we get here for piping.
10. For the sugar sprinkle letter ‘9’, you can keep a cookie cutter in the middle of the cake. Add sprinkles carefully (a few escaped :D) and remove the cookie cutter carefully.
11. Now have a free hand with piping and decorating!

This recipe is linked to Bake-a-thon. Check out the linky below for recipes from fellow participants.

This cake also goes to

• Vardhini’s Bake Fest hosted by Lail of With a Spin
• Cakes Mela
• Christmas recipes
• Favorite recipes Event: Christmas Recipes
• Lets cook christmas party food