Friday morning, I pulled Grace aside as she was getting ready and asked her if she would like me to bake her a cake and she got so excited and said,"YES! Can you make me a Tangled Cake?" I knew that this was the question to be answered...I had previously played with the idea of going all out and making her an extreme Tangled Cake. But after looking at all the different recipes and blogs that people had done, I got really overwhelmed since I knew cake baking wasn't an area I was to familiar with. But, I told Grace I could indeed make her a Tangled Cake. I decided that for her cake, I would have it be a two layer cake. She wanted chocolate and I decided on my beloved butter cream frosting recipe because it's DA Bomb!
For the chocolate cake recipe, I quickly did a search online, but I didn't find anything I really liked so I settled on my Better Homes and Garden Chocolate Cake recipe. The ingredients weren't anything to far out and it was one of the Best Loved recipes in the book, so I went with that.
Before I started the cake, I took some butter and my eggs out of the fridge so would be all soft and room temped. Then I began to grease my cake pans with Crisco. Once they were both nicely greased, I took my parchment paper and laid the cake pan on top of it and proceeded to trace the bottom of the pan, twice, so the parchment could go on top of the grease. Then I greased the tops of the parchment circles and the sides of the cake pan and lightly floured the tops too. ( I'm not exactly sure what size my cake pans are...I couldn't find the measurements, but I think they were 9 in pans.)
While the butter continued to soften, I think began to measure out my dry ingredients. Flour first!
Then it came time to measure out the cocoa. Let me tell you, I was so glad I bought an extra container because I knew I was running low and I definitely needed the extra one I had bought.
To the flour and cocoa powder, I added baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Hopefully at this point, your butter has softened enough. Mine hadn't, so I zapped it for a few seconds in the microwave and then poured the butter into my mixing bowl and gave it a whirl.
When the butter had been properly creamed, I began to add some sugar to the bowl about 1/4 cup at a time and combined on medium speed until it was mixed through.
Then I added in the eggs, one at a time, beating after each egg until the batter was creamy and smooth.
Now it was time for the vanilla extract which is one of my favorite parts. I began to measure out 2 tsp of vanilla, but because it was a brand new bottle more came out than I anticipated, so it actually probably measured out to be more like 2 1/2-3 tsp vanilla instead. But, a little extra vanilla never hurt any dessert that I know of, so I continued on with my mixing :)
Now that I had everything mixed through, it was time to make the batter all chocolaty and lovely. First I added some of the chocolate dry mixture from before to the egg and butter batter and mixed it until it became just combined. Then I added a little bit of milk, and mixed that until it was just combined. I kept going back and forth on this process until all the dry ingredients and all 1 1/2 cups of milk were combined into the mixing bowl giving me the most glorious and decadent bowl of chocolate batter I have ever seen.
I would be lying if I said I didn't lick the beater. It was sooo good!
I poured the batter evenly into both cake pans and then placed them into my pre-heated over ( at 350 degrees) for 35 minutes. When it was done, the toothpicks came out clean and I allowed it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then I removed the pans and parchment paper and placed the cakes on wire racks to continue to cool for an hour before it was time to frost them.
Now I didn't get any pictures of me making the frosting ( I'm sorry) because at this point, I was in the process of trying to bake and frost the other cake and decorate the house and I still had to get myself ready for the party. Thank goodness for my mom. She came to the rescue 2 hours early and after I made the frosting, she frosted the cake for me according to my vision.
I had looked all over for some Rapunzel cake toppers but I couldn't find any and though I could of bought the one the Fred Meyers bakery sells, it was kind of lame ( no offense Fred Meyers) so I just used a few of Grace's toy dolls for the cake toppers. When I made the frosting, I reserved some of the frosting and colored it blue for a stream.
Instead of frosting the whole cake green ( to act as a meadow for Rapunzel and Flynn) I picked up this food color spray and we just decorated the top of the cake with the green spray and then proceeded to decorate the cake with the dolls and fresh flowers.
I didn't get any pictures of the inside of the cake because that would of proven to of been a very difficult task. To be slicing the cake for a lot of hungry people and then stop to take a picture, yeah...it didn't happen so much hahaha! I hope this will do :)
Chocolate Cake
adapted from the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook
3/4 cup butter, softened
3 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups milk
Allow butter and eggs to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Lightly grease bottoms of two cake pans. Line bottom with parchment paper, grease, and lightly flour. In a medium bowl stir together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set Aside. Pre heat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl beat butter on high speed for 30 secs. Gradually add sugar about 1/4 cup at a time, beating on medium speed until well combined. Scrape sides of bowl; continue beating on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in Vanilla.
Alternately add flour mixture and milk to butter, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined. Beat on medium - high speed for 20 seconds more. Spread batter evenly into the prepared pans.
Bake in a 350 oven for 30-40 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. Cool cakes in pans for 10 minutes. Remove from pans. Peel off parchment paper. Cool thoroughly on racks for about 50 minutes. Frost with desired frosting....recipe to follow.
Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
adapted from Martha Stewart
4 sticks ( 1 pound) unsalted butter, softened
6 cups sifted confec. sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 pinch of salt
Put butter in a mixxing bowl and beat on medium-high speed until pale and creamy. Reduce speed to medium; add sugar 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well. Add vanilla and salt. Raise speed to medium-high; Beat until smooth.
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