Rich Chocolate Birthday Cake

The cake is pretty easy to make if you do have an electric mixer, but it tastes like a labor of love.

Ingredients

For Cake

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temp.
• 3/4 cup milk
• 4 ounces (4 squares) unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

For Rich Chocolate Icing

• 6 to 8 ounces (6 to 8 squares) unsweetened baking chocolate
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
• 4 cups sifted powdered sugar
• 6 tablespoons strongly brewed coffee
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• Pinch of salt

Directions

For Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 3 9-inch layer cake pans.
2. Sift flour into large bowl. Add sugar, butter, 3/4 cup milk, chocolate, baking soda and salt and beat with electric mixer 2 minutes at medium speed. Add remaining milk, eggs, baking powder and vanilla and beat 2 minutes more. Pour into prepared pans and bake in middle of oven 30 minutes or until cakes test done and have pulled away slightly from sides of pan. Allow to cool completely on rack(s).
3. Place first layer on plate and frost. Repeat with second layer. Top with third layer and frost top and sides of cake. Decorate top of cake with toasted walnut halves, extra icing, or M&Ms.

For Frosting

Soften chocolate and butter in top of double boiler over hot, not boiling, water.Stir in remaining ingredients. Place top of double boiler in bowl of ice and beat frosting with electric mixer about 5 minutes or until it reaches spreading consistency.

Cara and Phoebe are the co-fouonders of Big Girls, Small Kitchen, a food and recipe guide for twenty-something cooks looking for user-friendly, affordable ways to navigate their kitchens. On the blog, they offer fun kitchen strategies to help all home cooks of limited resources make the most of their tools available, big kitchen or small.

Their first cookbook, In The Small Kitchen: 100 Recipes From Our Year of Cooking in the Real World, will be published on May 24th by Harper Collins.

Serves

18