I liked that I changed BSI in that you can use archived recipes to submit each week – I know there are some weeks when all of a sudden I realize its Sunday and I haven’t submitted anything yet. So imagine my surprise when I went looking to see what I could submit this week – vanilla. Guess what? I couldn’t find any!!
Luckily I had planned on making wedding cake for our V-Day dinner celebration tonight. I looked over several simple chocolate cake recipes, and this is what I came up with.
Simple Chocolate Cake (printer friendly version here)
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup butter, room temperature
- 2 cups sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup room temperature coffee
- ½ cup milk
- 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted
Preheat the oven to 350. Combine flour, baking powder, soda and salt. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.
Mix coffee and milk together. Alternate between coffee and creamed mixture and combine with flour mixture until completely smooth. Pour in melted chocolate and whip at highest mixing speed for 2 minutes.
Bake in 8 inch cake pans that have been greased. Cook for 35-40 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting.
I have Veronica to thank for this wonderful frosting – go here to get her recipe! I made the cream cheese frosting.
The secret to this amazing frosting is creme bouquet that I won from Veronica – it gives it that distinctive “wedding cake” taste.
I decided to make my cake into four layers, so I sliced each layer in half. Can I just say I am not going to win any awards on cake decorating – but this is a delicious cake!
Another two other quick notes – I had my WW weigh in today:
And I finally got my Rocco DiSpirito autographed cookbook!
There are so many amazing recipes I want to try off the bat, but this one I think is going to be my first one to try – coconut shrimp!
You have until tonight to get your BSI entries to Wendy who is hosting this week – any recipe with vanilla!
A maintain is a winning week! That cake looks amazing…as do those coconut shrimp in the magazine – YUM! I can’t wait til you make those!!
Have a great week, Biz!
Thanks for joining my vanilla theme this week. It ended up being a great week with all sorts of wonderful recipes….sweet and savory!
Wendy
Around My Family Table
Hmmm – that chocolate cake looks to die for!
Have a fun V day dinner tonight! The cake looks ready to dive into! Can’t wait till you make the shrimp, looks amazing! 🙂
Mmmm, chocolate cake! Decorating is serious work, I need to practice more 🙂 Hooray for maintenance!
Your photos are beautiful! I just want to dip my finger into that frosting.
i have the book, becareful on some of the recipes, he uses alot of splenda and i wasnt really impressed with some of the dessest recipes, the after taste on some of them was bad, the onion ring recipe is good, the chocolate chip cookie was just nasty…tasted like i ate a bag of splenda and i still have half a bag of chocolate nibs i have no idea what to do with..and they were kind of spendy..i have looked everyplace for whole wheat panko and cant find anyplace…
Thanks Connie 😀
gahhhhhh- that cake looks ridiculous good! The icing is like ooozing out. Deliciousness. Vanilla is a perfect BSI choice for Valentine’s day week. Keeping y’all in my thoughts 🙂
The cake looks delicous. I’ve seen so many folks cook from Rocco’s book, I think I’m going to cave and buy it soon. Thinking good thoughts for you and Tony today Biz. Take care!!!
That cake looks sooo delicious!! Food doesn’t need to be pretty to taste good 🙂
Here’s the thing…that cake looks too delicious to be pretty. Who cares what it looks like??!! It’s the TASTE that counts, right? And OMG I luv coconut shrimp…let us know how that turns out, will ya?
Great job maintaining and getting your BSI submission in under the wire! I completely forgot about it until this reminder so I got mine in last second too! The only thing I’ve made from Rocco’s cookbook is the black bean brownies and please. Do not make them. *blarf!*
Thanks for the heads up Veronica! 😀
mmm is there anything better than chocolate cake?!?
Can’t wait to see you’re version of that coconut shrimp, yum! I don’t do decorating either, what counts is that the cake tasted good! I’m sure it was!