dad is great.. he gave us chocolate cake....

yes, i am a coffee snob. and have been in the coffee business for 10 years. COMMA but...... my first love is baking. (they kinda go hand in hand, no?)

j'adore baking.

i was the girl who used to go "visit" a blue KitchenAid mixer at Best Buy. when Husband and i found ourselves there, i would go see it... and touch it lovingly on its shiny parts.... and stroke the sparkly blue exterior and whisper to it, "some day soon, momma will come to take you home"

so, this december, our little blue mixer will be 4. in honor of the day, i will bake a cake! tee hee.


i find baking very therapeutic. when my life is all chaotic... i find solace in measuring and scooping and using EXACT measurements to achieve something that is not only art, but i can eat it too. it brings order to the craziness.



or, i just bake because it's a monday.


i got a wild hair. no, scratch that. i got inspired on sunday when Husband and i went to The Big Texan for lunch. as we were walking to our table, we saw the "dessert table" that was groaning from the sheer weight of some of these monstrosities. they even had a very large chocolate cake... at the sight of which, H says, "now THAT'S a chocolate cake" i said, "no dear, that's an OTTOMAN!" and it really was almost as big as one.

well, after we ate, we considered taking a slab of it home. and i told H i would much rather MAKE him a cake. (see, i have this new silicone fancy bundt pan i wanted to try out.... you can guess where this is going, right?)
and so i asked him what kind of cake he wanted... and he was trying to get all fancy with german chocolate icing... or "something with cream cheese" and i had to tell him that you "DO NOT frost bundt cakes" which we renamed "swing-away cakes" in honor of it being baseball season and all.

but i digress.....

last night, i got the fixings for my Now Famous Chocolate FUCK ME Cake. so named, because "Better Than Sex Cake" is SOOOOOOOOOO overused... and its so good, you actually might want to get intimately involved with it. and the bake-r usually gets "rewarded" for it. and that's also why it's not Chocolate FUCK YOU Cake.


its oh so easy. ready?

ingredients for the cake:

• one box of devil's food cake (COME ON.... i said it was EASY)
• one box of instant chocolate fudge pudding mix
• one 6 oz bag of nestle semi-sweet chips
• and all the stuff that goes into making the cake.. oil.. eggs....BUT instead of water, use brewed coffee. you have to do this first.. and then set it in the fridge to cool.

ingredients for the fudgy ganache icing:

• 12 oz of nestle semi-sweet baking bars (6 of the wrapped squares)
• heavy whipping cream
• honey

to make the cake:

1. grease and flour (instead of flour, use cocoa powder) a bundt pan. (i have the cathedral one... what a BITCH to wash)
2. mix cake according to directions, remember to substitute the water for coffee
3. after it is blended, mix in the pudding powder
4. add the chocolate chips, stirring carefully so you don't break them
5. pour into the pan.
6. it may take longer than the box says to bake... just watch it.
7. once it's baked, let it cool for about 20 minutes IN the pan. then flip it out onto whatever you are going to serve it on and let it cool for about 45 more minutes.

to make the ganache icing:

1. in a double boiler, melt the squares about halfway, then add 1/4 cup of heavy cream and 1 tablespoon of honey (this makes it shiny) and then finish melting. it may look lumpy and weird, just keep stirring it till its shiny and smooth.
2. pour/drizzle over the cake
3. serve naked, because it saves time, and because you are about to be REWARDED!!!!

because as they say, a way to a man's heart is through his stomach,

or if you are more realistic, its through his ribcage with a short stabbing motion. but only use this technique if the cake doesn't get you laid.