Yesterday’s witch’s brew cupcakes left me with about a cup and a half of cauldron-worthy green frosting and some bat mix sprinkles, so I decided to whip up a one-layer cake for Mike to take to his office tomorrow.
The cake recipe comes from the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook and is called “busy day cake,” aptly named for its ease in preparation. You just put your ingredients into a mixing bowl beat them for a few minutes, then pour the batter – which will be lumpy, but that’s fine – into your pan and bake it. The original recipe called for a broiled coconut topping on this cake, which I may make someday.
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cups flour
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2/3 cup milk
- 1/4 cup butter, softened
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- About 1 1/2 cups vanilla buttercream, tinted yellow-green (cut the original recipe in half to yield this amount)
- Wilton Bat Sprinkles
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8-inch round cake pan.
In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and baking powder. Add milk, butter, egg, and vanilla; beat on low speed until combined, then beat on medium for 1 minute.
Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for about 30 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Prepare frosting, then frost top and sides of cake.
Pour bat sprinkles into a bowl and gently place the bats on the top and sides of the cake. Sprinkle remaining orange and green sprinkles over the top of the cake.
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
amy bakes in the 'burgh 
I’m totally using this recipe for Margo’s bday cake. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m filling the finished cake with plastic spiders!
that is a great idea!! you could double the recipe pretty easily for a two-layer cake if you need to…let me know how it turns out. and, while you mix the batter, it will be pretty lumpy because the butter doesn’t fully incorporate into the sugar like with most cakes. this is totally fine, though – it will all even out while it bakes.