I made a birthday cake today from whole wheat with oil instead of butter to see if maybe I could have a little bit of a healthier version than the standard (I said healthier, not healthy...). I ended up using this recipe for the cake and a combination of the icing recipe that follows the cake and this recipe for the frosting. I made it a double layer cake which I've never done before. This is what I did:
First combine flour, sugar and cinnamon.
Boil the cocoa, oil and water and then mix it in with the flour mixture. (I used canola instead of vegetable. I'm sure if it is a fairly tasteless oil you can use just about anything. I've also heard of people using coconut oil, which does have a flavor of its own, in sweet dishes which may be fun to experiment with.)
Add eggs, vanilla extract and baking soda dissolved in the buttermilk. Initially I was going to just stir all of this together but I quickly realized that I would need either biceps of steel or an electric hand mixer to make this as smooth as it needed to be.
Bake at 350 F. The recipe says 20 minutes and if you are doing a 1 inch sheet cake I would stick with that, if you are making a round, double layer cake you will need to bake it somewhere around 30-35 minutes instead. This makes the perfect amount of batter to fill two round 9 inch cake pans. After cooking and letting them cool I cut the round top off of one of the cakes so it would be nice and flat.
Time to make the frosting! Since I combined recipes I'll write down exactly what I ended up using:
1/2 cup (one stick) of butter
1/3 cup skim milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup cocoa powder
4cup powdered sugar
Making the frosting is simple, bring the butter, milk and cocoa to a boil and pour into a bowl. Add vanilla and slowly beat in powdered sugar adding a little bit at a time.
This made plenty of really thick frosting so don't be shy putting lots of it in the middle part to hold it together. I thought that the vanilla was very noticeable so if you don't like vanilla, leave it out. I also think that about 3 cups seemed to make it plenty thick enough to still be a spreadable frosting. I might try that next time and just try to whip it up and bit to make it taste less sickeningly sweet and more fluffy.
And here is the finished product!
First combine flour, sugar and cinnamon.
Bake at 350 F. The recipe says 20 minutes and if you are doing a 1 inch sheet cake I would stick with that, if you are making a round, double layer cake you will need to bake it somewhere around 30-35 minutes instead. This makes the perfect amount of batter to fill two round 9 inch cake pans. After cooking and letting them cool I cut the round top off of one of the cakes so it would be nice and flat.
Time to make the frosting! Since I combined recipes I'll write down exactly what I ended up using:
1/2 cup (one stick) of butter
1/3 cup skim milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup cocoa powder
4cup powdered sugar
Making the frosting is simple, bring the butter, milk and cocoa to a boil and pour into a bowl. Add vanilla and slowly beat in powdered sugar adding a little bit at a time.
This made plenty of really thick frosting so don't be shy putting lots of it in the middle part to hold it together. I thought that the vanilla was very noticeable so if you don't like vanilla, leave it out. I also think that about 3 cups seemed to make it plenty thick enough to still be a spreadable frosting. I might try that next time and just try to whip it up and bit to make it taste less sickeningly sweet and more fluffy.
And here is the finished product!
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