Baby Shower Cakeage

One of my co-workers is having her first child, and I was asked if I could make a cake for the work shower. I had been wanting to play more with the chocolate work that I tried earlier from The Whimsical Bakehouse so I decided to make little ducks and frogs to go with her colors of yellow and green.


For the cake itself, I went with Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake, which truly is the perfect party cake. I've never made it exactly as written - there was "Da Lime in Da Coconut" version made for a Daring Bakers challenge, and the Peanut Butter and Jelly version from my birthday last summer. This time around I used the basic cake recipe, but omitted the coconut from the assembly stage, and used lemon curd instead of raspberry jam. So it was definitely lemony but still delicate, and the color accompaniment was nice. Unfortunately it was gobbled up so I don't have any pictures of the inside!


I mentioned I had planned frogs so I could do yellow and green, but I didn't have any chocolate-friendly coloring in green. So I made purple frogs instead. I used my go-to yellow birthday cake recipe for the cupcakes, which I don't think I've ever blogged! I might as well include it here. It uses a cake mix as the base (shh, don't tell) but is so tender and delicious! I think both the cake and frosting come from The Cake Mix Doctor which I used all the time when I worked at a tearoom where we had to come up with new ideas a lot. I don't own a copy myself, but have used this recipe for years! All I have written down is the ingredients, no instructions, but just use the usual cake instructions (350 F, the usual range for cupcakes vs. layers, and mix everything together for frosting.... haha, amazing what those of us who bake all the time take for granted!).

Basic Layer Cake
1 cake mix (I usually use yellow, pudding in the mix, not butter recipe)
1 cup whole milk (or whatever you have on hand, nonfat, buttermilk, etc)
8 tbsp butter, melted (or oil, but butter tastes better)
3 large eggs
2 tsp pure vanilla

Fluffy Chocolate Frosting
8 tbsp butter, room temperature
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup whole milk (or whatever)
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt <--- don't leave this out!