celebration chocolate marshmallow cake

This is not a very original name for this chocolate cake, but it's appropriate considering how the recipe came about. Jose looooves chocolate, and to celebrate the fact that he was recently accepted into Harvard Law (woohoo!), I made him this very rich chocolate cake. It's not all that healthy, but, of course, sometimes you just have to savor the exciting moments that come your way...and savor them all the way, especially with your taste buds :).

Here are all the ingredients that went into the cake:
3 cups cake flour
1 1/3 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 2/3 cups sugar
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup sour cream
1/8 cup butter
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup nonfat milk
1 cup dark chocolate chips

I mixed all the ingredients together, then baked them in 2 round 9" nonstick pans for about 18-22 minutes in a 350 degree oven.


As for the frosting, I melted about 1 cup of dark chocolate chips in a pan over a low, low flame. Then I crushed about 10-12 Newman-O's by putting them in a freezer/storage bag and going over them with a rolling pin a few times. After that I took the container of marshmallow cream I purchased earlier and poured it all into a cup before placing it in the microwave for a few seconds. (I microwaved it on the setting I normally use to melt a stick of butter...make sure you keep an eye on it or your microwave will look something like a marshmallowy North Pole). Once the cake cooled, I lathered on a generous amount of the marshmallow creme to the bottom layer. Then I sprinkled on the O's before adding the top cake layer. I did the same thing with the top layer, except I dressed it up with powdered sugar (this isn't necessary, though, I discovered the cake is sweet enough without it!) then drizzled the cake with that bittersweet chocolate I melted earlier.

The finished cake looks a lot like a huge oreo, too bad we didn't have a large enough glass of milk to dunk it into :).