Just like other stupid parents, when I realized Ethan loves Elmo more than he loves me, I didn’t feel upset. Instead I’ve been encouraging him to build passion to Elmo by letting him watch lots of Sesame Street. QUALITY PARENTING, dude!
So, on his 2nd birthday, I made him an Elmo cake. Only the frosting took me a whole morning, and I’m very sure he won’t remember a bit as he grows up. I keep asking myself how many times do I need to remind myself to stop being an idiot. 
But I guess THIS is what you are looking for – your child sees your masterpiece with his magnifying pupils and big beaming grin. He wants it desperately that he can’t wait till the fork comes and dig his head into it like a dog having not been eating for days. And most importantly, your ultimate goal has been achieved – a joker bright red mustard on his face that looks so much cuter than this.
Ingredients (around 10-inch cake):
Chocolate Devil Food Layer Cake 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups boiling water
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped 1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 cups vanilla butter cream frosting 1/4 cup dark chocolate, melted and slightly cooled Orange food coloring, 3 to 4 drops Red food coloring, around 2 tablespoons
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Generously grease and flour an Elmo cake pan.
In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In another bowl, whisk the boiling water, chocolate and cocoa powder until smooth.
Beat butter and sugar together on medium speed in a bowl of a standing mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in sour cream and vanilla extract.
Reduce the speed to low and beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture, followed by half of the chocolate mixture. Repeat with another 1/3 of the flour mixture and the remaining chocolate mixture. Beat in the remaining flour mixture until just incorporated.
Pour batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the surface with a spatula. Bake 45to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Remove cake from oven and cool on cake rack for 10 minutes. While the cake is still in the pan, carefully slice off the raised center portion of the cake. This allows the cake to sit moreleven and helps prevent cracking.
To remove cake from pan, run spatula around edge, place cake plate against cake and turn both plate and pan over. Lift pan off carefully. Cool completely before frosting. Brush loose crumbs off cake.
Prepare frosting accordingly.
To frost the cake starting with the eyes, using a small spatula to ice eyes with white frosting.
Reserve around 1/2 cup frosting for nose, eye pupils and mouth. Place the remaining frosting into refrigerator for later use.
Whisk melted chocolate into the half of the reserved frosting, pipe in pupils and smooth with a small spatula.
Pipe in smile lines and mouth, smooth with a small spatula.
Drop 3 to 4 drops of orange food color into the remaining half of the reserved frosting, whisk until the desired bright orange color forms. Using spatula to frost nose area.
Take out the remaining frosting from the refrigerator, whisk in the red food coloring until the desired red color forms.
Cover Elmo face by piping small red stars.
15 Comments
Lol… I don’t have any kids yet but my manager was telling me how he took his 3 yr old son to disneyland this weekend. After driving an hour and a half to get there, paying $15 for parking and $144 to get in, they left after an hour because he refused to get out of the stroller! Kids… gotta love em! But I don’t doubt for a second that seeing their faces light up at all your hard work makes it ALL worth it :) Happy birthday to your son!
You’ll have the pictures to remind him of the beautiful cake you made! And then you can guilt him into mowing the lawn…great cake! Theresa
That is adorable. My daughter too loves elmo than me.
What a gorgeous cake!!! I’m sure Ethan loves you more. =) I’d love this cake, too.
What a delightful cake. Mu daughter loves Elmo, I think I’ll make her a Elmo cake on her birthday which is in 3 weeks, thank you for the idea
Yep, that face is what it’s all about. Great cake too.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ETHAN!!!!
Such a wonderful cake and I can see a very happy birthday boy here ;-)
btw, little sister will be coming out soon…. hope the bro and sis will love the same character so that you don’t need to make 2 different cakes .. Haha.
wish you a very smooth and quick delivery!!!
this reminds me of so many cakes my mom made for me as a kid! pretty sure i had a cookie monster cake in there some where!
Happy Birthday Ethan! Mom, you did an amazing job on the cake, it’s so cute and perfect.
happy birthday
delicious cake
I have been meaning to make an elmo cake for my girls, but it is now year 4 (the age of the oldest kid) and I have YET to make it! You inspire me! Beautiful cake! Elmo would be flattered, I am sure. Happy birthday to Ethan!!!
What a cute cake, I can totally relate to you slaving over something all morning but it is worth it:) And yes the red mustard looks much cuter than the creepy mustache…LoL
this cake is so cute! this would be perfect for my niece:) i love it..thank you for sharing.
That’s a really cute cake lululu. I can see why it took you the whole morning to do the frosting. But it paid off! :)
That’s an awesome cake! You’re an awesome mom for making it for Ethan.
Paz ;-)