Super Moist Chocolate Cake | Spiderman Cake- My little one turns 4:)

Time flies so fast. Can't believe A~ is 4 years old. Happy Birthday Kaju Kutty. God Bless you.

When he was1 year it was elmo, when he was two, it was barney and thomas, when he was three it was toystory and more recently spiderman. So, for his fourth birthday I decided to bake a spiderman cake. I have baked cakes before, but I have never done any icing. It is just too much sugar and I do not do that normally.  This is also the first character cake I am baking. With my level of experience, I should have taken up something simple, but then my son adores spiderman and I wanted to try it out as well.

I bought the Wilton spiderman pan. It comes with complete instructions. I followed it...almost. I started the icing late in the night. I was tired, worried my second one would wake up and I would have to leave it half way through. So I skipped few things. The instructions are elaborate but this cake takes a lot of time. Take this up, if you have lot of time on hand.

I decided to do a chocolate cake. This chocolate cake recipe never fails. It is super moist and yummy.

Super Moist Chocolate Cake
Adapted from here
Ingredients

Dry Ingredients

All Purpose flour - 2 cups
Sugar - 2 cups
Baking soda - 2 tsp
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Unsweetened cocoa powder - 3/4 cup

Wet Ingredients
Oil - 1/2 cup
Eggs - 2 large
Buttermilk - 1 cup
Boiling water - 1 cup
vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Method
* Preheat oven to 350 degree F.
* Prepare the pan by greasing the pan with shortening and dusting it with flour. The wilton instructions specifically asked not to grease using butter or oil.
* Sift the dry ingredients and mix well.
* Mix the wet ingredients together.
* Add the dry ingredient mixture slowly into the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly.
* Pour into the pan and bake for 35-40 mts or until the toothpick comes out clean.
* When cake is done let it cool for 10-15 mts in the pan.
* Invert the cake onto a cooling rack and let it cool completely about an hour.

Note:
The changes I did to the original recipe are I added baking powder and reduced the oil by half.

I used the buttercream frosting recipe that came along with the Wilton  spiderman pan instructions.

Ingredients
powdered sugar - 1 lb (4 cups)
solid vegetable shortening - 1/2 cup
butter - 1/2 cup
vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Method
* Beat shortening and butter with a hand mixer
* Add vanilla essence
* Add powdered sugar slowly and beat well until it is combined well.

For the icing - Follow Wilton spiderman cake instructions.

I took it to A~ 's school and everybody loved it. The chocolate cake is super yummy and the recipe is a keeper.

Notes:
It helps to prepare the icing before hand and refrigerate. It is very time consuming if you do everything on the same day. I completed the cake 3 AM in the morning. But the joy in the face of A~ as soon as he saw the cake in the morning - priceless:)