Decadent Chocolate Cake with creamy Peanut Butter Frosting and a drizzle of chocolate!

Hello everyone =)

This weekend I had a killer craving for sugar, and I hadn't baked anything for a while, so you just KNOW trouble is brewing ;)

I havent baked a chocolate cake from scratch in over a year, so I thought now would be a good time to give it a shot! I was itching to try that whole "Black Magic" Chocolate cake over at Hershey's so I thought...why not? But I didnt know what to pair it up with. Chocolate frosting was too much for my taste buds at the moment, but as soon as I opened my cupboards, and saw that big jar of creamy kraft peanut butter, I was set!:)

But of course, for whatever reason, this time I didnt bother taking out all my ingredients out before hand and making sure I had enough of everything, and ofcourse that ONE time you dont check is the ONE time the Universe decides to scorn you. So after I was almost done I realized I had NO Milk!*sigh* a quick google search told me I could try yogurt as a substitute, which gladly we had 2 containers full.

Or so I thought.

Turns out both of them were almost empty, and put together they made about 2/3 cup of yogurt. So what do I do at this point? Fill it up to one cup with soy milk ofcourse! *smacks forehead* yah. I was expecting an epic fail, but thankfully I continued. I was so scared about how it would taste, but it turned out pretty yummy!

The only bad part was the cake became really "sticky" at the tops...like NOT WORKABLE sticky...so had to cut all the tops off.

The cake was also a tad bit hard to frost, because even though I did a crumb coat and everything, it still got crumbs, and at one point I pulled at the frosting too much and a part of the cake just chunked off!

Yah...it took some work! But in the end it turned out YUMMY. it was really heavy ( I prefer lighter cakes) but it was stillll realllllyyy good. With messed up cake and all! lol

So...heres the recipe:

Black Magic Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk or sour milk*
• 1 cup strong black coffee OR 2 teaspoons powdered instant coffee plus 1 cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans or one 13x9x2-inch baking pan.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes (batter will be thin). Pour batter evenly into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes for round pans, 35 to 40 minutes for rectangular pan or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost as desired. Yields 10 to 12 servings.

* To sour milk: Use 1 tablespoon white vinegar plus milk to equal 1 cup.

Fluffy Peanut Butter Frosting

INGREDIENTS :

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons milk, or as needed
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. Place the butter and peanut butter into a medium bowl, and beat with an electric mixer. Gradually mix in the sugar, and when it starts to get thick, incorporate milk one tablespoon at a time until all of the sugar is mixed in and the frosting is thick and spreadable. Beat for at least 3 minutes for it to get good and fluffy

** I also added about 1/2 tsp Meringue Powder....just to help it stiffen up and crust a tad more

After I was done, I felt it was obviously too plain, So I melted about 1/3 cup chocolate chips with 1 tbsp of margarine and 1 tbsp corn syrup (you could use honey) and went drizzling crazy!

Well thats all for now! Hope you enjoyed! Im going to be very busy this week with end of term school work and such, so prob no more updates until around friday? But then I will have a "special" post, its Nowruz Celebrations for us Persians, so I will make a special blog post all about it, (hopefully including some desserts I will be making on wed for it!)

hope everyone has a great week!


P.S. Sorry I went a little picture crazy this week....I took about 100 pics and just couldnt narrow it down any more! lol bare with me... and have a slice of cake ;)