The decadent birthday cake

Yesterday was Alan's birthday. Unlike Cal, he's a chocolate kind of guy - the more chocolate the better. This cake, the Campfire Cake, might be the best chocolate cake I've ever made. The recipe comes from Sweetapolita and can be found here. I'll give you fair warning - with a couple of pounds of butter in the cake and frosting, this recipe is not for the faint of heart. Or those with high cholesterol.

The cake itself is a rich, chocolatey base, with strong coffee added to the batter. This really adds to the depth of flavour. I baked the cake in two 9" pans, so there were four layers. The original recipe calls for three 8" pans to make six layers, but I only have one 8" round pan so it would have been very arduous to cook. I think I need to invest in a couple more 8" pans as the smaller, towering cakes really do look more impressive.

While the cake itself is very delicious, it's the frostings that really put this cake over the top. Inside, there are two layers of toasted marshmallow frosting; smooth and creamy vanilla, but with chewy bits of actual toasted marshmallow shell.

And the chocolate frosting - oh my. The recipe called for Belgian chocolate, but I had some Toblerone on hand, and decided to use it instead. The tiny bits of nougat were delicious in the light and fluffy icing.

There's only one word to describe it - decadent!