Rich Chocolate Cake

Make this if you have ten people coming over.  Any less than that and you'll gain five pounds.  I'm sure there are so many calories, but there is so much delicious.

Really.

As a chocoholic, you'd think I'd be addicted to chocolate cake.  This is not so.  Normally, I don't like chocolate cake.  There's something about it that just makes it taste wrong. 

This is probably because every time that I see a beautiful picture of a chocolate cake in a so-so restaurant, I order it, taste it, and discover that it's the same cake that the rest of the restaurants have and it still has that weird taste to it.

But that's just me.

This three-layer cake, this is homemade.  So that makes it twice as good.  And it's awesome.  Which makes it, you know, awesome.

And soooo rich.  But in a good way.

I found this cake on Audrey's blog.  It's called Suzanne's Chocolate Cake, and you can find the full story here.  I think it's amazing what Suzanne did.  (I also didn't know you can make a cake in a pot.  Whoa.)

Suzanne's Chocolate Cake

POSSIBLY requires softened butter*

REQUIRES FREEZING AND COOLING TIME (3 hours total)

Cake:

3 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

2 2/3 cups sugar

1 cup + 2 tablespoons baking cocoa

1 cup + 2 tablespoons water

1 cup + 2 tablespoons canola oil

5 large eggs

3/4 cup water (in addition to the cup and tablespoons)

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Frosting:

3 sticks butter, softened*

4 cups powdered sugar

3/4 cup baking cocoa

Water

Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease 3 10-inch cake pans.
2. In large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, and cocoa.
3. Add water and oil and mix well for 1 minute.
4. Add eggs, additional water, and vanilla.  Mix for 2 minutes with a stand mixer, 3-4 minutes with a hand mixer, or 5-6 minutes by hand.
5. Pour into prepared pans and bake 25-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
6. Allow to cool 5 minutes, remove cakes from pans, then put them back into the pans to cool another 15 minutes.
7. Wrap pans (with cakes in them) in foil and freeze for 2 hours.

*Frosting:

Okay, so there are two ways to do this frosting: 1. Follow the original recipe.  2. Follow the recipe I'm about to give you.

My way requires softened butter, the original way requires either a pastry blender or a food processor.  And my food processor sucks, so that's why I did it my way.

1. In large bowl, beat softened butter.
2. In separate bowl, whisk cocoa and powdered sugar.  Add to butter and beat well.
3. Beat until frosting is light and fluffy.  Add water if it becomes too dense.

Assembly:

1. Remove cakes from freezer and from pans.
2. Frost in between each layer as you stack the three cakes.
3. Seal-coat the cake with a thin layer of frosting, then go over it with the rest of the frosting.
4. Let sit 1 hour, covered, before serving.

Breaking it down:

Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, and cocoa.  (You can probably do this with a fork.)

Add oil and water.

Combine.  Doesn't that look beautiful?

Add eggs, more water, and vanilla, and beat until smooth.

Bake 25-35 minutes at 350 degrees F, let cool 5 minutes, remove from pans but PUT THEM BACK, cool 15 minutes, and stick in the freezer for 2 hours.  I actually made 3 9-inch cakes instead, and I think they took somewhere from 30-40 minutes.  But that's just a really rough estimate.  Trust the toothpick.

Whip up that frosting, whichever way you chose to do it...

Frost that beautiful, rich cake...

Let sit for an hour and then enjoy!

Just thinking about this is making me drool.  I feel like I have to run a few miles just because I'm thinking about this cake. XD
Enjoy!
-JJ