Say goodbye to recipes (for now)

For the next 10 weeks, Cobblestone Cupcakes will be a Life Blog^TM. This is mainly because my life will be temporarily interesting to the casual reader while I am living in Moscow.

But why in the heck are you going to Moscow?

The practical answer is because these guys were cool enough to pay for my trip/housing/schooling. The more feely answer is because (a) I think Russia is pretty rad (I mean czars?? Communism?? really long trains??), (b) I want to know more languages, and (c) did I mention the really long trains.

Basically, I'm going to summer school. When I'm not in class, I'll be doing cool city things like drinking coffee and riding the metro. (Also I am going to Saint Petersburg for a weekend.)

But I'm going to miss you :(

I know, I'm going to miss you, too. If you want a postcard, send me your address!

And if you want to hear more about my temporarily Russian life, you can subscribe to the blog (Bloglovin' or by email) and follow me on Twitter and/or Instagram.

Chocolate Layer Cake + basic decorating

Hello, hello!

The cheesecake in that last post was the last thing that I had made in a loooong time. I blame school. #toomuchphysics

But this week was my dearest darling sister's sixteenth birthday, so we needed a cake.

I've made this cake once before for another friend's birthday...

can't top this cake decoration

...but this time I decided to swap the thicker chocolate frosting for a lighter buttercream and the edible photo of Martin Freeman for some cute buttercream decorations.

I've never really "decorated" before, so (as you can see) I went for very basic decorations. BUT I had a lot of fun doing them, so there might be some more attractive cakes in my future (attractive in the frosting way not in the edible-photos-of-celebrities way...sadly). 

As far as the edging goes, I used a youtube tutorial to learn:

Without further ado...

Chocolate Layer Cake

The cake (from Hershey's)

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.

The frosting (from Savory Sweet Life)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream

1. Cream butter for a few minutes in a mixer on medium speed. 
2. Sift 3 cups powdered sugar and cocoa into the mixing bowl. Turn your mixer on the lowest speed until the sugar and cocoa are absorbed by the butter.
3. Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt, and milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. 

Assembly

1. If necessary, level off your cake rounds. "Paste" one cake round to your surface/platter with a few dollops of frosting. 
2. Spread a generous layer of frosting over this cake round and position the second cake round on top.
3. Cover the cake with chocolate buttercream and use a butter knife to smooth the frosting.
4. If desired, decorate with colored vanilla buttercream.