Chocolate Cake.

My friend Brittany's birthday was this weekend and I made her a cake of her choice (as I try with most of our friends). Brittany, who is not much of a sweets person, decided on a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for reasons only some of you might understand. I have been wanting to make a particular chocolate cake recipe for a while now (rather than make a 3-layer cake for my husband and myself) and this occasion seemed to fit perfectly.

Brittany's request was a little funny though because she doesn't really like frosting (at least not store bought frosting) so she was trying to explain how the frosting should be and came up with "fudge-y, creamy, kinda like whipped, and gooey." I had no idea how to make a cake frosting that was all of these things.... but after thumbing through a cookbook she pointed to a cream cheese frosting and said, "like that." And I thought, oh, well that is easy... it's just like any frosting I've ever made. Confusion averted. (I'm pretty sure she was just trying to describe a texture that wasn't super sugary and crunchy like cakes from the grocery store sometimes have.)

The cake was very dense, rich and dark paired with the frosting. It looked really beautiful. Most tall cakes look pretty, but this one was extra gorgeous with the dark chocolate frosting. The cake had great density and a friend commented that it "sliced perfectly." I think Brittany really liked the cake, and being spoiled on her birthday. I will be making this again, maybe halved though to make a 6" 2-layer cake instead of a 9" 3-layer cake.