Mmm Cake! -or- How I sometimes succeed at baking

After the picture of the delicious chocolate cake in my last post taunted me for a good week or so, I decided that for Mike's birthday, I was going to try making a chocolate layer cake with berries in the middle. Mike's not big on many berries besides strawberries, so thats what it was.

I have been failing a lot lately while trying to bake new things. Bread- refused to rise. Cookies- sunk in the middle. Sweet potato cinnamon buns- refused to rise. I blame it on a combination of a damp basement door where I store my packets of yeast and lack of proper baking tools, like a sifter or mixer. I was nervous about the cake, but I figured I hadn't killed Mike with any of my concoctions yet, so what the hey. There's always Wegman's for back up.

I chose this recipe and got to work. I decided just to use the directions for the actual cake part. I wanted to make my own filling and Mike has chosen a can of chocolate cream cheese frosting while we were at the store. I followed the directions as best I could, and ended up with a batter that was light and creamy like mousse. Pop in to the oven and out came...
two pretty little cakes! So far so good!

Then I added whipped cream and sliced strawberries to the middle. I think in the future whipped cream won't be the choice because it quickly started melting after this picture was taken.
Oh, the layers even lined up without cutting or anything! Last step was to add the canned frosting. I think I got it figuring if the cake tasted bad, we could always eat the frosting out of the can with a spoon. I might just do this anyway...Ta da! Finished cake!

Or should I say, nearly finished?