Recipe Recap: Root Beer Chocolate Cake

Raise your hand if 2012 found you:

• Resolving to give up dessert
• Promising to steer clear of your coworker’s candy jar
• Deciding to choose fruit over chocolate

I wish I could say this post is about a healthy treat that will support one of those undertakings, but it’s not even close to doing that.  In all fairness, I did make this in 2011 so…

I had a two-liter of root beer left over from the holiday soiree and I remembered several recipes from my Google Reader.  I could go with these Root Beer Float Brownies, or I could choose this Root Beer Float Cake.  I came across the cake on another blog, too, so I decided that was a sign that I needed to try it myself.  Well, that and the fact that it’s chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  I really didn’t need any other reason.

The recipe calls for dark unsweetened cocoa powder.  Look how the cake turns out almost black.

I frosted the cake as far down the inside as I went down the outside.  And I still wish I had more frosting.  I wasn’t the only one; Heather agreed that the frosting made the cake.

I shared this cake at Chelle and Jeremy’s when we got together for NYE Eve.  Even my chocolate-hating McHusband said it was an awfully good cake.  (Okay, maybe “awfully” is my word as the McHusband isn’t one to mince words, and I tend to like mine, um, un-minced.)

See the lighter areas in the cake?

The recipe made it very clear that the batter should NOT be overmixed and that it would probably still be lumpy.  So those lighter areas are where the flour wasn’t thoroughly mixed in because tough cookies may be okay, but tough cake isn’t.

Mmm, frosting.

I think the McHusband didn’t mind this cake’s chocolate flavor was because it was made using the dark unsweetened cocoa, and the frosting used that same cocoa plus a very dark chocolate that I chopped and melted.  So all together, it wasn’t overly sweet or sugary.  Which left room on the taste buds for some vanilla ice cream.  I’m just sayin’…

I was paranoid about the cake not being fully baked so I think those last three minutes where I put the cake back in the oven were unnecessary and probably led to the cake being not quite as moist as I was hoping for.  I’m not sure if anyone else noticed, but I would still like to make this again minus those last few minutes added on to the baking time.

Let’s try this again.  Raise your hand if the end of this post finds you:

• Craving a piece of cake
• Adding root beer to your grocery list
• Hating me for messing with your resolutions (It’s okay, I can take it.)

Personally, I think this cake is worth breaking your resolution(s) four days into the new year.  Try it.  Tell me it wasn’t worth it, I dare you.

{Recipe here}