Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Pudding Frosting

Sometimes we settle into routines.  We get used to doing things a certain way or we all of a sudden forget the our 3 1/2 year old is just that, 3 1/2.  You get into a routine, the little munchkin is fully trusted and you begin to well....slack off on watching them like a hawk 24x7.  Instead you focus on things like staring at your skin in the mirror wondering why the 200 dollars worth of creams you bought arn't doing jack.




Above my friends is what I like to refer to as "The reason why your white fireplace is now painted black."

Being the fantastic interior designer that I am I decided that I would go thrift shopping for artwork (for the wee ones room).  I found the perfect painting with little birdies on a wire, it just needed a new frame.  Well getting something framed is not cheap, so I decided to buy some black paint to re-do the frame myself.




Easy Peasy right?

Why yes, yes it was actually.  After of course I physically was able to force that painting back in the frame without breaking the billionth of a centimeter glass that whomever created this painting decided to use.  Not to mention the 18,000 staples that were 18,000 years old that had to be bent then re-bent to try and keep my 5 dollar painting intact.




So I painted it, I put it back together...and then it happened.  Despite the fact that I had instructed my little girl to NOT touch the black paint...she did.  Infact she touched the paint and then decided to massage said paint all over our white wood fireplace.  I had settled into the "my child is perfect routine."  This is always the routine ends up being turned into, "The reason why your white fireplace is now painted black routine."

Lesson learned, until it happens again....in T-minus 5,4,3,2.....




INGREDIENTS
Delightfully borrowed, slightly modified from The little Kitchen
{Printable Recipe}

Chocolate Cake

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup baking cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup black strong coffee
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Pudding Frosting
1 cup milk
1 3.4 oz box of instant vanilla pudding
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
8 oz tub of Cool Whip, softened
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, sifted

 

DIRECTIONS - Chocolate Cake

Grease (2) 9 inch round pans and line the bottom of the pans with parchment paper cut to size.

In a mixing bowl, sift all dry ingredients together. Then take a rubber spatula and thoroughly mix the dry ingredients together.

Mix in all of the wet ingredients and mix with your stand mixer until well blended but don't over mix. Pour evenly between pans and bake at 350 degrees for 28-30 minutes or until after inserting a toothpick into the center of a cake comes out clean.


DIRECTIONS - Pudding Frosting

Mix vanilla pudding mix with milk in one bowl, using an electric mixer, until pudding sets. In another bowl whip up cream cheese using an electric mixer. Add cool whip to the cream cheese and mix together well.

Add vanilla pudding to the cream cheese-cool whip mixer and mix together well.  Mix in the  sifted powdered sugar.

Cake should be stored in the refrigerator for 1 hour before serving, and should be stored in the refrigerator between grazing's.