Crazy Cooking Challenge: The Ultimate Chocolate Cake!

Surpise!! I've joined yet another cooking and baking challenge group. I love these things!! You get to try new things with a supportive and encouraging group of fellow bloggers. You learn new things and get to have fun doing it. This time the challenge is the Crazy Cooking Challenge hosted by Tina of Mom's Crazy Cooking. She posts some amazing things on her blog, so I knew the challenges would be great too.

The Crazy Cooking Challenge is a new dish each month of which each participant can make their own rendition of for the challenge. For example, some of the past challenges have been Macaroni & Cheese, Fudge, Mashed Potatoes and Chocolate Chip Cookies. YUM!! This month the challenge was to make the ultimate chocolate cake. It didn't matter what we did to the cake (i.e. icing, decorating, filling, recipe), but it had to be chocolate and it had to be cake. How fun right?!

I was on Pinterest (I love followers, so feel free to follow the link and follow me on Pinterest) the other day and I saw this cake - Mint Chocolate Chip Cake. Ummmmmm thats so my favorite kind of ice cream!!! So, it was settled, I was totally making that for the Crazy Cooking Challenge. I found this recipe on Raspberri Cupcakes (along with dozens of other amazing looking recipes). She had adapted the chocolate cake recipe from David Lebovitz's Devil's Food Cake, so I knew it was going to be delicious.

Yep, this is a pretty ugly piece of cake. It was the only piece leftover after serving it to my guests and I realized that I had better take a photo showcasing the lovely chocolate inside of the cake to show that my recipe is actually CHOCOLATE CAKE in light of what this challenge is about!!!

So, here is my entry into the Ultimate Chocolate Cake Crazy Cooking Challenge! Mint Chocolate Chip Cake. It seriously tastes just like the ice cream, so if you're a fan (and probably even if you aren't), you'll love this cake!

Mint Chocolate Chip Cake
Recipe minimally adapted from Raspberri Cupcakes

Ingredients:

For the Cake:

• 9 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-raising cake flour)
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 115g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup strong coffee
• 1/2 cup cream

For the Frosting:

• 280g + 1/3- 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 2 tsp peppermint extract
• 150g dark chocolate chips, run through the food processor until finely chopped
• green food colouring
• waffle ice cream cones to decorate (minis if you can find them!!)

Method:

1. Butter and line the base of a 9" springform pan with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350F. Sift together the cocoa, cake flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Using a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and the sugar for about 5 minutes or until very fluffy and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat after each addition until fully incorporated.
2. Mix together the coffee and the cream. Stir half the dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Add the coffee-cream mixture. Then add the rest of the dry ingredients until smooth. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 35-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean (be careful not to overbake). Remove from oven and cool in baking tin for 5 minutes. Remove from baking tin to a wire rack and cool completely.
4. Prepare the mint icing: In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat 280g of butter until fluffy and lighter in colour. Add the icing sugar one cup at a time and beat until smooth after each addition. Beat in additional butter (hence the 1/3 - 1/2 cup extra butter) until the icing is a nice spreading consistency. Beat in green food colouring until evenly distributed and coloured to desired green food colouring level. Stir through finely chopped chocolate until evenly distributed.
5. Using a serrated knife, cut the cake in half to form two layers. Place one layer on a cake plate. Spread 1/4 of the icing on top of first layer of the cake. Then place the other half of the cake on top (trim top if necesary to get a nice flat surface). Ice the entire cake with the remaining icing. Use an ice cream scoop to make "scoops" of any extra frosting and arrange artfully on top of the cake. Top with the mini waffle cones.Can be served immediately or stored in an airtight container overnight. Serve at room temperature.

Mmmmm this was a deliciously moist cake and the frosting tasted so much like mint chocolate chip ice cream. It is a super cute cake that has a bit of a wow factor to it. I served it for a ladies get together at my house and it was a hit. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

This post has been linked up with Mouth Watering Mondays over at the Sweet Spot. Head on over there to check out some of the other mouth watering dishes fellow bloggers have cooked up this week. :)

This post has also been linked up with Fusion Fridays over at Jennifer Cooks. Head on over to check out her favorite submissions from last week and what other bloggers are linking up this week.