Dark Chocolate Cake

(Attempting to make a 'cute' decoration on the cake, I created this ghostly looking cupcake/muffin/mushroom creature out of powdered sugar and Halloween cookie sprinkles! Can anyone say decorating on a budget!? Thankfully Jose got a kick out of it, he said it looked like a nintendo character :).)

After taking a trip to Houston and celebrating Jose's birthday and Father's Day this weekend, I feel a little wiped out. But I am so happy that Jose enjoyed his birthday yesterday! More than anything else, he really wanted a dry aged steak from Whole Foods for dinner...so that's what I made him. The 1 1/4 pound piece of meat made him very happy, I could see the hair growing on his chest as he savored the manly and very meaty meal ;)! Thankfully, I didn't burn the darn thing.

Jose always requests a chocolate cake for his birthday, but this time around, I thought I'd spice it up a little with extra chocolate and a heaping tablespoon of coffee. The chocolate cake recipe I followed the first time I ever made Jose a chocolate cake was my inspiration. He really liked how chocolatey and dark it was; Jose's the kind of guy that drinks good coffee black and dark chocolate more than dark, somewhere in the 75% range. He appreciates the rich earthiness of both flavors, so I made sure to showcase them in the improvised recipe :)...and when I say improvised, I mean practically re-done; completely tweaked...thankfully, for the better!

Yep, despite the fact that I loaded it with dairy products (I really wanted to make this cake super delicious and, let's face it, nothing beats the real thing!) I managed to sneak in a taste and it was deeeelish. Rich, earthy, stuck-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth thick and ooey gooey, this is a cake you'll definitely need to wash down with a tall glass of refreshing milk or soy milk...or chocolate beer! Chocolate beer?! Yes, that was Jose's birthday drink of choice. I'm not a beer fan, but the chocolate beer was tolerable - it had a really nice chocolatey after-taste that didn't make me want to gag the way most beers do.


Take a look at all the ingredients that went into this cake, and you'll see why it's so tasty. It's loaded with everything...except too much sugar. If you take a really good look at the cake, you'll notice that only the middle and top layers are frosted; I dabbed some powdered sugar around the edges with a moist paper towel to give it a simple and not-too-sweet look and taste. I didn't want the sugar to overpower the cake :). If you're having a bad day, call it your birthday and make yourself this dark chocolate cake...believe me, chocolate is a miracle worker!



Want to see the original recipe? Check it out here!