My soon to be eight year old son has asked me to make him a chocolate cake for his birthday party Who knows why!). He also want it to be iced  with white sugar icing and decorated. So I need a good recipe for chocolate cake. Do you think it would be best to use ready-to-roll icing or royal icing? Also, do you think I will still need to put a thin layer of almond paste/marzipan between cake and icing? Thank you in anticipation of all your help.

A good friend will be celebrating his birthday soon. He has a wheat and gluten intolerance. I was wondering if there are any good tried and true recipes out there for a gluten free birthday cake or dessert of some kind. Something that has the lightness and texture of a conventional homemade cake recipe. Please don’t ask me to search for it on Google. I really want a gluten free homemade cake recipe that someone here has tried and was successful.