Birthday Cake Challenge

The other day was my birthday. I've apparently gotten to the point in my life where I have to make my own birthday dinner and my own birthday cake. While it is kind of sad, it also has its benefits for my family. My husband is allergic to dairy, so he can't indulge in most purchased desserts. In fact, we had a dairy-free groom's cake at our wedding. (Which was delicious despite the lack of cream and butter.)

Anyways, I decided to make a sour cream chocolate cake because it is so easy to substitute the dairy ingredients. I got the recipe from my mom's copy of Joy of Cooking because they dropped it from the most recent edition. I substituted margarine for butter, soy creamer for milk, and Sour Cream Supreme for regular sour cream. This recipe uses unsweetened chocolate, which doesn't have milk in it. (It just uses a ton of sugar instead.) The result is a light, fluffy, chocolatey-but-not-TOO-chocolately cake.
Since I love coffee, I made a quick espresso-chocolate frosting. I realize that coffee and chocolate is usually called mocha, but this was not mocha. It was espresso. And chocolate. In frosting form.

My son "helped" me spread the frosting on top and in the process scraped off large portions of the cake. He hasn't quite learned to wield a cake spatula. So I mounded a few raspberries on top, and sprinkled a little powdered sugar over it.

I just love the color of raspberries!

Final result

J. was so happy I let him "help"

A 10-year-old took this photo. Because it's not obvious at all.