Making a Birthday Cake

To celebrate Bill's birthday (albeit a day early) we decided to surprise him with a chocolate cake. OK, it wasn't that much of a surprise, I'd pre-warned him we were going to start baking and therefore please stay out of the kitchen, but, as far as Ben was concerned it was a surprise. While it was baking, Ben stood in front of the oven to "hide" the cake, and several time he whispered to me, as quietly as any 5 1/2 year-old can whisper "shhhhhh, Dad doesn't know what's in the oven" - yeah right.

As always, the highlight of the entire process was licking out the bowl...