Birthday Cake

In spite of the signs of autumn all around, nice weather has been hanging on in defiance of the weather forecasters and their dire predictions for frost and chilly rains.  I suppose it won't last for long though.

I made chocolate cake for Mike's birthday.  Let me rephrase that...I made CHOCOLATE cake for Mike's birthday.

Here's how:

1. Butter a 9" cake pan and line with a circle of parchment paper.  Butter the parchment paper too.
2. Melt 7 ounces of good quality baking chocolate and 7 ounces of good quality butter over hot water.  I used 4 ounces of unsweetened and 3 ounces of bittersweet.  Or maybe it was the other way 'round, I don't remember exactly anymore.  Stir chocolate and butter together.
3. Add the chocolate mixture to 1 1/3 cup sugar in a mixing bowl and allow this to cool a bit. Then beat lightly.
4. Add five large eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. Stir in 1 (that's one) tablespoon of all purpose flour.
6. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.  It will look like chocolate mousse.
7. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 25 minutes.
8. The middle may look still moist when it is done, but don't over bake.
9. It keeps well in the freezer--maybe even slightly improved after a day or two in the freezer.
10. A slick of frosting, a spoon of whipped cream, or a spoon of ice cream--all superfluous, but a little bit of excess never hurt anyone around here all that much.

Now, here's the thing.  The cake is good and very, very rich.  The recipe is from A Homemade Life.  We had each had a piece on Saturday and I knew that we would have another on Sunday and that took up a third of the cake.  I figured it would be a good idea to wrap up the rest and put it in the freezer--save it for another time the urge for chocolate hits, save ourselves from pigging out on the whole thing in just a couple of days.  I thought I was doing the responsible thing.

So Mike went to get himself a slice of that cake on Sunday.  He found what I had portioned out for the second helping and thought to himself, "Wow, it's almost all gone.  She has really been hitting this cake pretty hard."  He thought I had eaten an entire half of a cake over the day on Sunday!  Honestly!  I'm outraged.