Rich Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Okay, so the cake I made for our friend’s birthday was SO GOOD.  I mean, this was THE BEST chocolate cake that I have ever had.  Rich, dense, and chocolaty.  And the icing was lick-your-fingers good.   I absolutely love cream cheese frosting so I pretty much knew I would love this combination.

I got both of the recipes off of allrecipes.com—chocolate cake (I only made ONE change) & cream cheese frosting (also with one change, by accident!)

Rich Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

Makes two 9 inch round cakes

Ingredients:

CAKE

2 cups white sugar

1 and 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup boiling water (**with 1 and 1/2 teaspoons instant coffee granules–this was my change because I remember reading somewhere that coffee complements/brings out the flavor of chocolate–and it sure did)

ICING

2 8 oz packages cream cheese, softened

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened (totally didn’t see this in the recipe and left it out…but it was terrific without it, saving MANY calories!)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

To make:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans (first rub with butter, then cover with flour, dumping out excess).

In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Add in the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla.  Mix with a hand mixer for 3 minutes.   Stir in the boiling coffee mixture by hand.  The mixture will be VERY thin.  Do not despair.  Pour evenly into the two pans.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes in pan.  Then remove from pan to cool completely.

Mix the cream cheese, vanilla, and powdered sugar together with a mixer until smooth for the icing.  I cut this recipe in half because I had read a few reviews saying that would be enough icing for the 9 inch double rounds.  However, they were all WRONG.  I only had enough to frost the top of the cake.  Believe me, it was still good.  But this frosting is so good, you want as much as you can get!

Once the cakes have cooled, frost to your liking.

Then cut and enjoy!

SERIOUSLY, the best cake ever.  Far exceeds boxed cake mix.

Today when we were out shopping to pick up Season Six of Reba (yes, there IS a season six…we thought there were only five seasons!), we ran into Kimm’s cousin and his wife.  It was a nice visit.  They bought a house about three years back about 15 minutes away from us.  They invited us for an impromtu dinner (pizza!) and we got to visit for a while.  A pleasant end to our day.  Believe me, the beginning part of the day is not worth mentioning.  Basically felt BLAH and depressed.  Life can be depressing sometimes, especially when you start thinking about finances.  But thankfully, the funk was diverted fairly quickly.  I think I just need to remember that everyone has problems and even though other people’s lives may LOOK perfect, they most assuredly have problems as well.  Easier said than done sometimes!

The good thing is that tomorrow is a BRAND NEW DAY 🙂