oopsy daisy cake

We were celebrating my sister in law's birthday today, so I thought I would make the Baked Sunday Mornings recipe for this week, the Oopsy Daisy Cake, a milk chocolate cake with a peanut butter filling and an old-fashioned vanilla frosting. And since my SIL didn't request anything specific on her cake (no dora, no strawberry shortcake or hotwheels!), I was inspired by the title of the recipe and decorated it with daisies.

The original cake makes two 8-inch layers, but because I needed to feed 13 people, I knew it had to be bigger. I though of making one and a half time the recipe, but there are a lot of 1/3 cup measures in the original recipe, and i was too lazy to do the math, so I just doubled everything and baked it in three 9-inch pans.

Looking back on it, maybe the cake didn't need to be 9 inches across and 6 inches high. Just a tiny bit over the top. But I always want to make sure I have enough cake. I probably should have saved a layer for another time.

The cake itself is pretty standard, butter and sugars getting creamed together, then dry ingredients and a mixture of melted milk chocolate, cocoa powder, coffee and milk get added in. Maybe I made a mistake while doubling the recipe, or maybe I over-baked the layers, but I thought the cake was just blah. A little dry, a little bland, unremarkable. On the upside, the layers came out nice and straight.

The peanut butter filling was easy to whip up and tasted great with the chocolate cake and the best vanilla frosting ever! Love, LOVE the boiled milk frosting, and it came together so nicely for me this time around! I didn't add peanut butter to the vanilla frosting because I was sure I'd have some leftover since I had double the recipe, but somehow, I manage to put pretty much all the frosting on the cake.

I did have issues with the decorating... I actually did put everything on the cake as I had planned, but that lasted about 10 minutes, before the bow and the flowers fell off. So I quickly had to come up with a plan B, and put the bow and the flowers on top of the cake, where gravity was less of an issue, and made additional flowers for the side of the cake. Still came out pretty cute, I think.

For the recipe, and to see how the other Sunday morning Bakers fared with this recipe, click on through to the Baked Sunday Mornings website!