Happy Mother's Day!

I hope all of you mom's are having a happy mother's day! In order to celebrate the awesomeness of my mother, I made dinner (Cajun chicken pasta, coming to the blogisphere soon!), and a chocolate cake!
SO my mom will accept nothing less than a chocolate cake for every occasion, so I try to liven it up with cute shapes! One year for her birthday (which is right before Halloween) I made these:

They were chocolate cupcakes shaped and covered in fondant to look like ghosts! They took forever and I'm definitely not doing that again! For Mother's day I tried to make it more simple:

It's a hat! Cute right??? I was a little frustrated with my mom's love for chocolate because I didn't want to make a brown hat! It turned out cute though the fruit roll-up hat band made it perfect! My family really enjoyed this cake and said it was rich and really moist! I found the cake recipe on Whisk: A food blog and I will definitely keep this recipe on hand for the next mom holiday!

Recipe for Chocolate Layer Cake

adapted from finecooking.com

10½ ounces (3 cups) sifted cake flour
1½ teaspoons soda
½ teaspoons salt (leave out if using salted butter)
1 cup boiling water
2½ ounces (¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons) unsifted unsweetened natural (non-alkalized) cocoa
¾ cup cold water
½ cup cold plain yogurt
1 tablespoon vanilla
6 ounces (12 tablespoons or ¾ cup) unsalted butter at room temp.
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350°F. Take out butter and eggs to get to room temperature. Start boiling 1 cup water. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven. Line the bottom of three 9-inch cake pans with parchment and lightly grease the sides.

Sift the flour, soda, and salt three times. (Although I don't always bother sifting, I did this last time I made it, and the cake seemed slightly lighter.)

In a mixing bowl, pour the boiling water over the cocoa and stir to blend. Refrigerate to cool to lukewarm, stirring occasionally to speed cooling. Stir in the cold water, yogurt, and vanilla. If necessary, refrigerate again to cool to room temperature before continuing. (You don't want to melt the butter or curdle the eggs when you add this chocolate mixture later.)

Beat the butter until soft (about 1-2 minutes). Add the sugar and beat until light in colour and texture (about 5-6 minutes). Whisk the eggs briefly and pour them slowly into the butter mixture. Mix for 2-3 minutes.

Spoon 1/3 of the flour mixture into the bowl. Beat on low speed until incorporated. Pour in half the cocoa mixture. Beat on low speed until blended. Spoon 1/3 of the flour in. Add remaining cocoa mixture. Add last of flour and beat. Divide among the cake pans.

Bake. Rotate the pans halfway through, until the cake just begins to shrink from the sides and a toothpick comes out clean (30-35 minutes). Cool on rack for 5 minutes. Invert. Peel off parchment. Cool completely.

Hat assembly:

Allow the cakes to cool, and then trim around the perimeter of the 8-inch layer until it is 6 inches in diameter (or, for a wider brim, trim this slightly smaller). Don’t level this layer because the mound will make a prettier hat, but do level the 9-inch, bottom layer.

Place the 9-inch layer on a 12-inch cake plate. Frost or fill. Then place the 6-inch layer on top and finish frosting, smoothing the buttercream over the entire hat.

Then create a ribbon to wrap around your hat like a hatband. If using fondant (marshmallow’s the best tasting), create the ribbon and bow separately and attach with icing. A hat ribbon can also be created with the fruit roll ribbon. Or instead of the ribbon, pipe tiny flowers around the hat to make a floral band.

Enjoy!