Recipe for a birthday cake

[tammybear]

I would like to bake a cake for dd for her 2nd birthday (2.5 weeks) but has been about 2 years since I last baked a cake. Dont have any recipe books for cakes, so could do with a mumsnetters hand

What are you wanting? A fruit cake? A sponge cake? A flavoured sponge?

My vote is for Betty Crocker packet cake mixes. If you want chocolate cake. Devil's Food is my Favorite but the Choclate Fudge is also delicious. A fail-safe low-stress option. I use dit to make dd a castle cake for her recent b/day party and everyone said how nice the cake was and wouldn't believe me when I said it was from a packet! If you wanted to make a fancy shape, I got the design for the castle from the Disney website, "Family Fun" section it has lots of diferent, fairly simple cake designs. Happy Baking.

probably sponge cake with chocolate chips thrown in or something along those lines

You could do a basic sponge recipe.

Grease and line 2 sandwhich tins with butter and a circle of greaseproof paper.
Turn on oven to 180-190c or Gas mark 4-5.

Cream 4oz marge with 4oz caster sugar. Then add 2 eggs, one at a time with a spoon full of the flour after each one so it doesn't curdle. Then fold in the rest of the 4oz flour. Divide the mixture in to the tins and bake for 20-25 mins until golden brown and springy on top. Sandwhich with butter icing or jam and cream. You could take out half an ounce of flour and put the same amount of cocoa powder in.

Oops forgot the chocolate chips. You can throw 2 oz of these in just before you put it in the tins.

I always do 6, 6, 6 and 3. 6oz flour, butter, sugar, 3 eggs. I add a couple of spoons of cocoa powder and drinking chocolate. Then I throw in some chocolate buttons. For the topping I melt one large bar chocolate, add some oil and pour over cake. Put in fridge to set. Yummy! The kids love it.

I think Betty Crocker do a Chocolate Chip Cake Mix too. I know it's cheating, but when I do cakes from scratch they always seem to dry.

add a spoon of milk and use a slightly shorter cooking time. Also take out of oven straight away.

ooo thanks girls. may try those all out before dd's birthday for practise (and to have some cake round when i fancy it ) thanks