Birthday Cake!

So, I don't honestly remember the last time I've made a fancy cake. But for their 6th birthday (tomorrow!!!!) Sean and Ashton requested ravioli for dinner, and a chocolate cake. Since their birthday falls on a Wednesday this year, their party is going to be on Saturday at Jump Man Jump, and I'll be making ice-cream cone cupcakes for that occasion. But I couldn't let their actual birthday go uncelebrated! So chocolate cake it is. I found a Devil's Food Cake recipe in this cookbook, but decided on chocolate whipped cream frosting instead of the dense fudgy frosting that accompanies this recipe. First, a picture of the flour, melty chocolate
mixture, and the whipped sugar-butter:
I love the swirly pattern the chocolate makes as I blend the three bowls together (if you click on it you can really see some detail):

And one of the two cakes (which I baked last night so they would be cool enough for assembling tonight- can you see the parallel lines from the cooling rack?), plus the "unchocolate" whipped cream:

Now I know you'll look at this next picture and think, "Wait- didn't she say 2 cakes? Why are there only 3 layers here then?" Well let's just say that one got a bit disfigured during the cutting and flipping process. Plus three layers is plenty, right?

I made this cake while the boys were asleep, for two nights now. I hope it will be a great surprise for them tomorrow that I made them a nice cake (even though they did ask for it). At any rate, my parents are coming over, and I know my Dad will be in pure chocolate heaven with this one... :)

And lucky for me that frosting hides any little mistakes there might have been with my layers... :)