Chocolate snack cake

Sometimes, all you need is chocolate.  At least, all you want is chocolate!  Once again, it's time to celebrate chocolate - one of my greatest loves - in this month of February and ahead of Valentine's day in a few days.  

So for no more necessary reason beyond my love of chocolate and for making, eating, and sharing chocolate cake, I'd like to present this simple chocolate snack cake that's good for any occasion or for just any ordinary day.

I have certainly baked many a chocolate cake and generally enjoy them all.  For an excuse to keep making chocolate cake throughout the year(s), I'm always happy to try a new twist.  In this case, I was captivated (and immediately motivated) by Now, Forager's chocolate sprinkle snack cake; her photographer is stunning and one look at her gorgeous cake had me itching to make one of my own!  It's simple, classic and just a happy cake to bake - and eat - any time of year. 

This cake is familiar in its lineup of ingredients - cocoa powder and coffee for chocolate flavor, sour cream and oil for moisture.  An interesting note on the frosting - this dark chocolate frosting has a relatively small amount of powdered sugar in it relative to most buttercream frosting recipes.  I actually worried it might be a bit too little but it works, which opened my eyes to new possibilities.  The smaller amount of powdered sugar makes for a creamier, silkier frosting where you can really taste the chocolate.  That is definitely a good thing. 

Sprinkles are optional, or maybe not.  I know that colorful sprinkles always makes me smile - the hard part is deciding which sprinkles to use!  My family and I are also partial to chocolate sprinkles on our chocolate cake.  But whether you like it plain or bespeckled with sprinkle confetti, you won't regret this chocolate interlude!

Simple chocolate party cake

It's been a busy couple of weeks, filled with celebrations and a vacation. I recently celebrated a big birthday and we just got back from a wonderful trip to Charleston, South Carolina.  

Before all that, I happened to be looking at some beautiful bakes from Style Sweet CA on Instagram and then spotted a simple chocolate cake on the site that I thought would be fun to make with my son.  It reminded me of the Texas sheet cake we made together last summer and it, in fact, is that with a different type of chocolate frosting on top.  

Instead of making a sheet cake, we divided the cake recipe in half and made a single-layer 8-inch cake (I made just 1/3 the recipe for the frosting and it was more than enough).  I decided to tag this as a "simple chocolate party cake" instead of "easy chocolate sheet cake" as the original is called since I baked it in the round, which I think is a bit more formal looking.  If you bake it in sheet cake form, it's great to slice into small squares or rectangle servings for a crowd. 

The chocolate icing - given the high ratio of confectioners' sugar in it - is the kind that forms a bit of a dry crust on the surface.  It's not what I'd call "fudgy" (which I think of as a smoother, more creamy, chewy texture like this) so instead of calling it a fudge frosting recipe as I found it, I'd say it's more a classic American-style chocolate frosting/icing on this cake.

My son and I had fun in the kitchen preparing this cake.  It's nice to sneak a few moments together doing something simple like baking or cooking.  And the final reward of having a homemade cake can't be beat.  As with all things homemade with care, it seems to taste all the better.

His shirt says "Never Skip Cake" (not true, but would be a good line)

Incidentally, I realized that we made this cake just a couple of days before my birthday (okay...not so coincidental...I may have planned it that way!) so I can say my son helped make me a birthday cake this year!  If I sound desperate, sometimes I am.