Fish Birthday Cake

For Jackson's birthday I decided to make a fish cake since I got to choose and it would be easy to decorate. I got the idea from bakedecoratecelebrate.com. Jackson decided he wanted chocolate cake and so I made him one with buttercream frosting. I thought the frosting was way too sweet so it's not even worth posting, but the cake itself was really good--very moist and dense. So I thought I'd post the chocolate cake recipe.

Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake
(found at hersheys.com)

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1-1/2 t. baking powder
1-1/2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 t. vanilla
1 cup boiling water

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour (and put parchment paper in bottoms) two 9-inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together all dry ingredients. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speen of mixer for 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.

10 to 12 servings.

Note: There's a chocolate frosting recipe that comes with this cake recipe on the website. I'll probably try it out next time I make this cake, but I couldn't use it this time because I needed a white frosting to make the fish.