Luscious devil's food chocolate cake

It's been raining almost every day for the past one-plus week now. And as much as I like the rain and the coolness it brings ^^, the gloomy weather doesn't exactly inspire baking or photography lessons ^^|| it's however, totally perfect for afternoon naps ^^! *oink!**oink!*

Anyways, baby pig's birthday's round the corner, and I promised to make the cake and sweet treats for his pool-party ^^ YAY! unlimited baking! to my heart's content ^^!!! Errrr.. what should I make, eh...? ^^||

Maybe some cake pops? So, just for experiment sake, since I don't have a to-go chocolate cake (brownies' different!), I made Ina Garten's beatty's chocolate cake and also bisouatoi's devil's food chocolate cake last night. And.. sorry, ina garten ~ it's probably me.. I may have messed up somewhere.. but I don't get the (kitchen-) sponge-like (but gorgeous looking texture and color) cake ^^|| So, moving on.. rima's decadent frosted chocolate cake ^^

Devil's food chocolate cake (recipe of rima@bisouatoi)

1 cup flour, sifted
1/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted
3/4 tsp baking soda, sifted
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar (I reduced a little ^^)
1/2 cup brown sugar (I reduced a little of this too ^^)
65g unsalted butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup buttermilk*
1/4 cup warm water (I used freshly brewed expresso/coffee)

* 1 cup buttermilk = 1 cup milk + 1 tbsp lemon juice/white vinegar ~ stir and leave to sit for 5-10 mins

1. Preheat oven to 170C.

2. Beat butter and sugars till light and fluffy. Add egg and mix till well incorporated. Mix in vanilla extract.

3. Fold in sifted flour, baking soda and salt to butter mixture, alternating with liquid ingredients (buttermilk + warm water/coffee) in 3 batches.

4. Pour into prepared tin/s (rima used 3 7-inch round tins), and bake for 30 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.

Chocolate ganache
200ml heavy cream
250g dark chocolate, chopped
a pinch of salt

1. Double boil cream in a bowl over simmering water. When cream is warmed/hot, add chopped chocolates. Stir till chocolate melts and immediately remove from heat, but continue stirring till mixed. If chocolates burns or separates, place bowl over simmering water again, add more cream and stir till smooth.

2. Assemble cake with cream cheese frosting (I omitted this ^^||) and chocolate gananche. Check out rima's blog for the cream cheese frosting recipe and her simple but beautifully decorated chocolate cake ^^.

Well, fatty hubby, piggies and mama pig enjoyed this soft and moist cake ^^ especially since it comes with decadent chocolate frosting! And papa pig approves ^^ it's barely sweet.. just nice with the dark chocolate frosting.

Anyways, I've decided to ditch the cake pops idea ~ too much work ^^||! And why mess with perfectly good cakes? (^^)