Sometimes you just need cake

And I mean cake. With the sugar, white flour and fat not replaced with healthier alternatives.

Here is the cake Sylvia and I made yesterday, for no other reason than that we felt like making and eating it:

I'd forgotten how much fun it is to make a cake for no particular purpose or occasion. Normally when I make cake like this, it's for a party and I can't really sit down, relax, cram a piece into my mouth and truly enjoy it. I love baking healthy breakfast-y things like muffins, but there's just something special and frivolous about making a cake with absolutely no nutritional value.

On the topic of cakes, I've had a lot of fun making Sylvia's birthday cakes over the past two years. I made this tiger cake for her first birthday: 

Of course, she was too little to request anything in particular, but she was born in the year of the tiger and has always loved toy tigers so that was enough for me. Also, it seemed like one of the few decent cakes I could make with my limited cake decorating abilities!

For Sylvia's second birthday, I made this cake:

I hope that you can tell that it's a rabbit! In case you're wondering, it has a bow tie. It does look slightly demonic. In the weeks leading up to her birthday, Sylvia alternated between wanting a rabbit cake and a 'moon and stars' cake, but finally decided on the rabbit cake.

I used the same recipe for both cakes, as well as the one we made yesterday. It's a chocolate cake because Sylvia loves chocolate. Like mother like daughter. I found it here online. It is a fantastic, simple recipe and always turns out very moist and delicious. Kids especially love it. I use the 'chocolate buttercream' from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. 

I also have to include a link to an amazing beetroot chocolate cake from Nuts and Seeds which I've also made several times. It's so nice not to have to use artificial colouring to make the pink icing - just add a bit of beetroot juice! I'll never use red colouring again.

It will be interesting to see what kind of cake Sylvia requests for her third birthday. With her will and determination growing stronger by the day, I am just hoping it's nothing that requires any engineering/construction ability!