Mix together all the dry ingredients thoroughly then make 3 depressions in flour mixture; pour oil into one well, vinegar into second, and vanilla into third well. Pour hot water over all, then stir with a fork until well blended.

Bake in the preheated oven for around 28-32 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Once your cakes have cooled completely to room temperature, trim the tops with a long serrated knife to make them level and flat.

You’ll eventually stack your cakes on top of each other to get a two-tier cake, so make sure they’re cut identically so they stack well later. Cut both cakes in half once.

Pro tip, if you’re unsure of your cake-cutting, you can practice this design on a square sheet of paper first. Practice by cutting it in half with scissors then following the next steps to get a cake shape you’re happy with.

Refer to the photos for an example. Along the top edge of the cake, make a cut about one inch deep in the middle, and cut off that one inch strip on the left side. The right side of the top edge should remain uncut.

Do the same to the bottom left edge of the cake by removing one inch. Use your knife on the bottom left corner to cut small pieces off until it looks like a smooth chin for the T-Rex instead of a blunt corner.

Where you cut the cake in half originally, you’ll be left with two smooth cuts. Open up your cake so it looks like the top and bottom half of the T-Rex’s head. You’ll notice when the cake is opened like this, there’s a point where the cakes meet. A flat edge is easier to decorate than a point like this, and it’ll look nicer in the long run.

I added a dotted line to the photo to show you where to cut the top point of the bottom cake to make it flush with the top section of cake.

Push the new flat part of your bottom piece flush to the top piece so it looks like an open T-Rex mouth.

Once both of your original square cakes are cut identically as I’ve described above, add a layer of chocolate frosting to the first set of cakes and stack the second set of cakes on top. At this point, you can use a small knife to cut off any bits that don’t match/stack perfectly.

Now, it’s time to decorate! If you need a recipe for buttercream icing, I've included it in the ingredients at the end of this article.

I make my frosting black with dark-chocolate cocoa powder instead of milk chocolate. I find mine at my local bulk-bin ingredient store. Using dark black cocoa powder means you won’t need black food dye. Alternatively, start with your chocolate frosting or white frosting and add black food coloring until you get your desired color.

Make a small batch of vanilla frosting and separate it into 3 bowls. Take two tablespoons of your white frosting and color it yellow for the T-Rex eye. Then take the rest and separate it into two bowls, one for green and the other for blue.

Start by outlining a large area for the mouth then smooth it out with a small cake spatula, it’s going to look pretty goofy until you add in the white teeth later. Outline the eye-area so it doesn’t get filled in with blue and green frosting.

Next, add large spikes/triangles of green frosting and fill them in on the top of the cake. The areas that aren’t green triangles, you can now fill in with blue frosting. I used a small star tip for the green to draw stripes of frosting on the cake. Then I used a larger star tip for the blue and piped stars over the rest of the surface.

Use both blue and green on the sides of the cake until it’s completely covered.

Add yellow frosting to the inside of the dinosaur’s eye area then outline it again with more black icing. Add a black oval to the center of the yellow to create a slit for the dinosaur’s pupil. Add a triangle of black just inside the top left corner of the cake to make a nostril.

Now it’s time to make dinosaur teeth for your t rex cake. I used a small package of Satin Ice white fondant. Roll it on a non-stick surface until it’s pliable then break it into small pieces. I used both hands to make each tooth by pinching the fondant between my thumbs and forefingers into a triangle shape and then pressing it on the counter to give it a flat back. They need to lay flat on the cake, so this helps. Make the teeth in various sizes so you have some to experiment with when you’re placing them.

Place the teeth in the black area you outlined for the mouth. Your cake is ready to roar!