Yellow Cake With Chocolate Frosting

My friend Katy asked me to help her make a birthday cake for her husband last week and, of course, I obliged! She wanted to use my "giant cupcake" pan from Williams-Sonoma that I used for Mackenna's first birthday cake and wanted to make a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. I searched around for a good yellow cake recipe that would be sturdy enough and I came across this wonderful recipe from the Wilton website. It's nice and dense, but still soft and delicious, perfect for decorating. After we finished decorating the cake and putting the fall-colored M&M's around the platter, we relized our cake perfectly resembled a pinecone! So, Katy's husband got a yummy pinecone cake for his birthday party...that's what he gets for being born in the fall!

Ingredients:
3 cups sifted cake flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoons salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
2/3 cup butter or margarine
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/4 cups milk

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease bottom of two 8-inch round cake pans and line with waxed paper or parchment paper. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. Cream sugar and butter together until light. Add eggs and vanilla to creamed mixture and beat until thoroughly mixed. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition. Continue beating one minute. Spread batter evenly in prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool layers in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely. Fill and frost as desired.

Chocolate Frosting:

I was at Trader Joe's earlier that day and one of the checkers recommended the chocolate frosting mix to me when he saw I was buying cake ingredients. I was definitely skeptical at first, but I couldn't have been more pleased with the look, taste, and ease of it. It's a great mix to have on hand just-in-case!