I found this Martha Stewart recipe via pinterest. Chocolate cake (preferably dark) is hands down my favorite dessert. I like mine with a ton of frosting and vanilla bean ice cream. It is a legitimate way to my heart. This delectable treat naturally seemed liked an appropriate Christmas dinner dessert. This was my second attempt at making a cake from scratch and I undoubtedly had beginner’s luck with my first one.
While this recipe is not super simple and requires paying close attention to the directions, I made no modifications to the ingredients. I didn’t have any parchment paper on hand and assumed it would be okay as long as I adequately greased the 9 by 9 pans. Unfortunately, the pre-frosted cake layers turned out like this:
NOT GOOD. I kind of freaked out about serving this cake to a bunch of people on one of the most important holidays of the year, but it tasted amazing. Perfectly moist with just a subtle hint of coffee flavor. Maybe not as dark as I would like, but milk chocolate usually appeals to more people. It was a cake worth salvaging.
Pacing around the kitchen in my red Davidson Wildcat apron with three other dishes left to prepare for Christmas dinner, I decided to excessively frost the cake. Although the layers were uneven, It actually kind of worked. Everyone at Christmas dinner could tell the cake was clearly made with love and holiday cheer. The final product turned out a little lopsided, but fairly presentable for a newbie. The copious quantity of red and green m&ms definitely helped. My four year old cousin Ella also enjoyed the cake. She powered through almost her entire piece.
For my second cake attempt, I am fairly happy with how this bad boy turned out. In the future, I will use parchment paper and cook the layers longer to prevent a a future fiasco.
Takeaways: Use parchment paper always.
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