Anniversary Cake.

I've been baking. Just not blogging.

Anywho. Today my sister Laura and her boyfriend Morgan are celebrating two years together. Aww young love is the best, right? Really though it gives me the excuse to bake something a bit fancier than normal so whatever. She requested a chocolate cream pie (I made some chocolate cream tartlettes, recipe to come soon), but I really wanted to make something I could write on top of. AKA a cake. She's not a huge cake fan, but he'll eat anything. So this might seem a rather generic cake, but it tastes much more than generic.

Chocolate Chip Cake with Vanilla Bean Buttercream. Cake recipe found on some website somewhere and modified muchly.

Chocolate Chip Cake:

¾ cup chopped semisweet chocolate (not chips, they'll sink. Mini chips might work, though.)
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch salt
¾ cup sour cream
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt.

Combine the sour cream, milk and vanilla. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and egg, and mix until the mixture is smooth. Stir in the flour and sour cream mixture, alternatively beginning and ending with the flour. Fold in the chopped chocolate.

I used two round 8-inch cake pans here, and it was pretty perfect batter-wise. You could probably use one 9x13 for a sheet cake or 1 10-inch round cake pan. Bake until golden brown around the edges and risen in the middle, or until a toothpick comes out clean when tested in the middle of the cake. My 8-inch cakes took about 25 minutes.

Vanilla Bean Buttercream

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
4 to 6 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup half and half

Beat the butter until very smooth and creamy. Add the extract and paste, and mix to combine. Add the sugar a cup at a time, and adding in the half and half when it looks too dry. Taste for sweetness as you go, adding more sugar if you need to. Mix on high speed for about 3 minutes until very light and fluffy.

Ice the cake any way you wish! I garnished this with chocolate chips on top and some chocolate hearts I made with melted chocolate.