Best Chocolate Cake Ever!

Really, I mean it.

Yesterday was my Anniversary and today is Valentines Day, I know, why the heck did I get married the day before Valentines. It's was the Anniversary of our first date. Hey when your in love you don't think these things through.

Back to the Best Chocolate Cake ever!

Since these two big days are side by side, I always make something heart shape. This year I decided on a cake.

Got this idea in my head that I wanted to make a cake like my favorite ice cream.  Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia, Yum right.

So I set out to find a really good Chocolate cake recipe.

I found a recipe on Addapinch.com

 

 

After adding all the ingredients the batter smelled like heaven.

Heart shaped pans of course. Just a little side note. See how full I filled these cake pans.... Well this cake really puffs up. After about 10 minutes in the oven my house smelled like chocolate heaven, 5 minutes later it smelled like burnt chocolate. The cake had risen over the edges and onto the bottom of my oven.

 

As you can see, one cake came out of the pan perfect, the other not so much. I will explain more about that later.

I went to my favorite cake supply house here in Phoenix, ABC Cake Decorating and Supply. Bakers heaven! I talk to one of the many helpful ladies and explain I always have issues with cake coming free from the pan. She highly recommend Cake Release by Wilton.  It really does work, however, you have to a bit more generous with it than I did on my first pan. (Lesson learned)

The other great ingredient in the above picture is Silver Cloud Natural Flavoring. I of course bought Cherry to make my Cherry Garica Cake.

For the middle layer of my cake I chopped Cherries and added them to the Cherry flavor frosting.

Next I decorated my cake, remember Anniversary/Valentines Day Cake.

My husband had bought me roses, so I thought it would be fun to match the color of the frosting with the roses.

My cake was a success and my husband love the chocolate/ cherry combo. He did say it was the best chocolate cake ever.

Here is the recipe, nice and easy.

Pre-heat oven to 350.

2cups all purpose flour

2cups sugar

3/4 cup cocoa

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon espresso powder

1 cup milk

1/2 cup Vegetable oil

2 eggs

 2 teaspoons Vanilla

1 cup boiling water.

Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and espresso to a large mixing bowl, Mix until combined.

Add milk, veg.oil, eggs, and vanilla. Just mix until combined.

Carefully add one cup boiling water to cake batter and beat on high for about 1 minute.

This cake batter is running compared to most and I was worried at first but trust me, it will be so moist!

Pour into a greased pans and bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

I will be using this recipe again and again. Enjoy.