Chocolate Cake for Rishab's third birthday

Rishab's Birthday Cake

Rishab loves chocolate and anything made with chocolate, so I was sure what kind of cake I'll be making from him. A chocolate cake. I spent quite a lot of time to find a good recipe for a cake with a lot of chocolate (: D)! And I found one which I felt would just be the right thing.
And since we were going to celebrate his birthday two days later, on a Saturday, Rishab was home on the Friday, when we both made the cake together. He loves helping me with baking cakes and muffins. It was not a very relaxing activity for me, but I wanted to make sure that Rishab had his share of fun. After all, the party was for him. And the cake turned out really good. I had to use more frosting than given in the recipe, which I have basically copy pasted from the source (cacaoweb.net). I used a slightly simplified version of the cake (two layers instead of four).- I had too many guests for that. To be exact, I had invited ten children (with parents and siblings) of which nine actually came. Since Rishab had just started going to the kindergarten, I had invited all of his friends (or going-to-be-friends).

Chocolate Layer Cake
Ingredients

1 ½ cup (340 g) butter, softened
1 2/3 cup (340 g) sugar
6 eggs
2 2/3 cup (340 g) all-purpose flour
ca. 3/4 cup (120 g) finely ground almonds
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup boiling water

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180° C (Gas mark 4 or 350° F).
2. Line two 9 inch (23 cm) cake tins with greaseproof or other non-stick paper and grease the tins.
3. Beat the softened butter with sugar.
4. Add one egg at a time, mix well between each egg.
5. Mix with flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, vanilla extract, and finely ground almonds.
6. Add ½ cup of boiling water and mix well.
7. Transfer to two separate cake tins and bake at 180°C just until set in the middle, approximately 30-45 minutes. A wooden pick inserted in centre should come out with just a few moist crumbs on it. Do not over-bake!
8. Cool the cakes and cut each in half, horizontally. They are easier to cut if they are kept in a refrigerator for a few hours before cutting.

How I made the cake: I took the recipe as it is but, instead of taking two baking tins made it simply on a baking try of an (European-) oven, which was almost the same size as the two tins together. And instead of making four layers, I just made two layers. So, I cut the cake once horizontally. Now, I first cut the cake once in the middle to prevent the layers from breaking, and separated the two layers. Once I had poured enough chocolate frosting over the lower layer(s), I put back the upper layer(s) back and poured the rest of the frosting. Before the frosting hardend, I started placing gummy bears and fruits over the cake together with Rishab.

Frosting
Method with heavy cream:

1 cup (240 ml) heavy cream or whipping cream
14 oz (400 g) sweet dark chocolate/ milk chcolate (or a mixture of both)

1. Heat the heavy cream or whipping cream in a sauce pan.
2. Remove from heat, add finely chopped sweet dark or milk chocolate, and stir until smooth.
3. To test it, transfer a tablespoon of the frosting into a chilled cup and place in the fridge for 15 minutes. If it is too thin, add some more melted chocolate. If it is too thick, add a few tablespoons of cream, stir until smooth, and test it again.