Chocolate!

One of the best parts of being on vacation is getting to reconnect with friends that me and the mister don't get to spend a lot of time with on a regular basis. Among all the crafting and Diablo playing, I made sure to fit in a few visits. 

Yesterday, we headed west to visit some friends of ours for dinner. They graciously offered to cook, so I agreed to bring the dessert. Upon asking if there were any requests, I got a response of "chocolate!" nearly instantly. So I hopped on Pinterest to see what I could make that was chocolate. I settled on these little insulin shockers from Beantown Baker.

They are called "quintuple" chocolate cupcakes, but if two layers are the same can you count them separately? Your call. I'm going to refer to them as quadruple chocolate cupcakes. Either way they are delicious, but very, very rich. I was the only one at dinner that made my way through an entire cupcake. (Maybe I should have kept that little secret to myself...nah, I'm ok with it.)

These beauties start with a dark chocolate cake. Then a layer of chocolate cream cheese frosting. Followed by chocolate glaze and chocolate sprinkles. Finally, top them off with another small dollop of cream cheese frosting.

I made a few variations with this batch. I tried a few without the sprinkles, and some with just the cream cheese frosting.

If four different layers of chocolate are too many for you, but you're looking for a great chocolate cake recipe, I would highly recommend this one. I don't make a lot of chocolate cakes or cupcakes, but this recipe may change that. It was an easy recipe and the cake comes out rich and moist. It really doesn't need anything else, it is wonderful on its own. As an added bonus the chocolate is melted from the heat of other ingredients, away from the stove top, so no worries about burnt chocolate. This recipe calls for the batter to sit for an hour at room temperature though, so make sure you aren't in a rush to get it in the oven.

Tonight, we'll head north to visit some of my family. Tomorrow, we'll be going to dinner at another friend's house. Same plan as before...they will be cooking a delicious dinner and I'll bring the dessert (it's kind of my thing). And same as before, when I asked for requests I was met almost instantly with "chocolate!" as the response. So back to Pinterest to find more chocolate masterpieces for me to recreate.