Hello Kitty Cake... Day 1

My 3 year old niece, "Princess", asked me for a Hello Kitty cake (or as my 3-year-old nephew says: Hawwa Kitty- he's cute, I know!)

This adventure started off from here:
Coolest Hello Kitty Birthday Cake Photos and Tips

Getting inspiration from all those hello kitty cakes, I decided to make Hello Kitty like some did - "carved" oval shaped plus ears from a sheet cake. A HK face cake.

A trip to the grocery store ensued to look for stuff to use for HK eyes, nose, whiskers and bow. This is what I got, hoping somehow it'll do.


I had to sms my sister-in-law to ask what Princess's favorite cake flavor was. The answer was chocolate. Chocolate it is then! I've probably made tens of scratch chocolate cakes but I rarely remember making a scratch chocolate cake that tasted as good as or even better than cake mix cakes. I don't know why it's just chocolate. But I had a tub of sour cream in my fridge that'd go "sour" in a couple of days. And I'd love to find a good scratch chocolate recipe once and for all.

(As a side note: I have made many top-rated chocolate cakes from sites such as AllRecipes, and had the cake turn out tasting funny. Burnt. I don't know how to describe it. Could it be the Cocoa? I believe we only have Dutch-processed cocoa down here.)

So it was decided. I'd be baking the Devil's Food Cake from Martha's Baking Handbook. It has sour cream in it and it specifically states Dutch-processed cocoa. A perfect match for my needs. The recipe is available online on Martha's website here: Devil's Food Cake with Chocolate Ganache.

Blobs of batter waiting in the cocoa-dusted pan (the cocoa did not look as dark irl)

Nice and smooth(-ish), ready for the oven. Bakity-bake my lovely batter!

After a cooling period on the counter, into the freezer it went.

Of course, after the cake cooled on the counter I had to taste the cake , just to make sure the cake was edible before feeding it to those poor little kids. I'm their aunt, I have to suffer for them :p

Now what frosting should I pair this with? It must be white... and somehow appeal to this kid i.e. not tasting too "cheesy/shorteningy/buttery"... Simple whipped cream? Or "Dream Whip" (similar to Cool Whip but in powdered form)? How about White Chocolate Ganache? Will that work?

I need something tasty, white, thick enough to cover the brown cake and something on which I can add my "embellishments" <-- lol, that's my cardmaking, rubber stamping background coming through.

Part 2 Here