Chocolate Cake

Tomorrow is Ate Mara's birthday so I'm making a cake to bring to work to celebrate! She told me she liked chocolate cake and I like choco cake with vanilla frosting, so I got both recipes from CooksIllustrated.com. I went to B&N a few weeks ago to peruse while waiting for a friend and picked up the March/April 09 issue of Cooks Illustrated. Inside, they had a cool recipe for chocolate cake that they tweaked in America's Test Kitchen, because the original one they had (from WWI) wasn't chocolatey enough. Interestingly, they added fresh coffee to make it better. So of course, with my fresh batch of Illy and mayo (I KNOW!), I made the cake! Apparently, the mayo was used instead of butter because of wartime shortages.

Pictures tomorrow when the cake is devoured :)

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Deelish! I made the cake and frosting last night and frosted the cake this morning. It made me realize how badly I need a springform and an offset spatula, but I did well with what I have! The cake was chocolatey, but not too cocoa-y. It was sweet and dense, with a lovely texture for a cake! The frosting was a bit sweet, but what can you expect from buttercream? Ate Mara seemed to really like it, she took half to bring home and dole out to her friends. First chocolate cake, successful! I think I may have to make this for my own birthday..and I don't even care for chocolate cake that much. :)

Pardon the terrible picture. I was at my desk using my cell phone camera...