Barefoot Bloggers- Beatty's Chocolate Cake

Allow me to cut to the chase...This cake was AWESOME! Tonight the Barefoot Bloggers are baking another cake, and this one came out much better than the last one.
The last cake had me wondering who in their right mind would even bother to make a cake from scratch when the box mixes are sooooo much better.

Well, not tonight. This was one of the most rich, decadent, fabulous, chocolatey, yummy, awesome cakes I've ever had. Certainly the best I've ever made.

It wasn't all that hard. I will admit I baked the cake last night and frosted it tonight because I didn't have the time to make it all on the same day.

The recipe is unique in that it calls for buttermilk and brewed coffee. If you watch Ina's show, she always hypes up how coffee brings out the chocolate flavor. I was happy to finally have a reason to test that theory. She's right. You don't taste the coffee at all. All you taste is the yummy goodness of the extra rich superbly delicious chocolate.

There are not enough superlatives in the world to describe this cake!

Mary from Passionate Perserverance , you really picked a winner tonight! Thanks!!!

Birthday Sheet Cake a.k.a "The Brick"

Have to admit, wasn't all that excited when I saw that the two Barefoot Bloggers recipes for September were cake. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE cake. It's not that. It's just that I wasn't really in the mood to make a Birthday Sheet Cake, especially given we don't have a birthday to celebrate tonight.
I decided to cut this recipe in half because 12x18 is simply too much cake for a family of four.
So, let's start with the positives on this recipe- the chocolate ganache frosting is really, really good. I would make it again without hesitation for future cake recipes. It was rich, glossy, delicious. I may use a mix of dark and milk chocolate instead of all dark. It was awesome.
The cake itself, not so great. I am blaming myself for this and not the actual recipe. I have been making Ina Garten's recipes forever, and they rarely let me down. This cake turned out really bad. It was way too dense. Not light and fluffy. Not moist. It was dry and didn't taste quite right. After the fact (hindsight is 20/20 as they say...) I went to Food Network's website and read the reviews and apparently this is a common issue with this cake and many readers had to adjust the baking soda down. Had I done that, I'm sure this cake would have been great!

Oh well, you win some, you lose some!

I certainly hope that Susy of Everyday Gourmet had better results than I did!!!