choco-nilla birthday cake

Today is C.'s 11th birthday! Inspired by the Baker's Banter post, we decided to make their Choco-Nilla Cake. However, C. was not feeling the chocolate ganache this time, so he asked that I make it with the whipped cream frosting I made for P.'s birthday instead of the chocolate icing and filling that Baker's Banter used. C. decorated it himself with blue writing icing -- a curly font "11".

Regarding the cake, if you've perused the recipe, you've seen that it's comprised of two different cake batters -- you split each layer in half after it's baked. The two batters are very different in consistency. The vanilla batter is very thick and heavy, producing a dense and heavy cake. The chocolate batter is quite thin and downright runny -- it took forever to bake (an additional 18 minutes over the printed recipe time). The finished chocolate layer(s) is (are?) spongy and much lighter by comparison. All in all, it's all very yummy, but I wasn't at all confident it was going to turn out.

My other comment is, in my experience, the King Arthur recipe chocolate cakes aren't all that chocolatey. This cake is no exception -- not a lot of rich chocolateyness in the chocolate layers. I suspect that if we had made it with the prescribed chocolated ganache and filling, it would've done a better job of hitting the chocolate spot. I'll let you know...