Let Them Eat Chocolate Cake

 

I broke the silence of the house yesterday by simply stating that I intended to make a chocolate cake. "No, no, no, you can't do that," my daughter Samantha bellowed, a look of sheer terror on her face. "If you do that I'll just eat it!" Damn, you would think a more appropriate response to this proposition would be more along the lines of, "Yah, yah, happy day, my mom's gonna make me some yummy chocolate cake." Oh, well, most of my waking life is spent in a fantasy world.

Mind you, this was not going to be your ordinary chocolate cake, but Black Magic chocolate cake. Those of us who pour over recipe books are familiar with the imaginative names bestowed on even the most basic culinary creations. Plain old Devil's Food Cake has been replaced with such evocative titles as Death By Chocolate Cake, Sinful Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Decadence Cake, and even Mafioso Chocolate Cake. On the other hand I found recipes entitled Chocolate Rapture Cake, Paradise Chocolate Cake, and Yum Yum Chocolate Cake. And if you want to really go all out,  coat the cake with caramel and fudge sauce and dump candy bits over it before frosting, and call it Better Than Sex Chocolate Cake (I would personally call this one Better Than Life Cake Cause You Will Surely Die If You Eat Too Much Chocolate Cake).  Needless to say, all these are chocolate cakes, give or take a few ingredients. 
As usual I ignored my daughter's outburst and went to work. The cake was completed and taste tested by the baker. . . . . again, and then again. As for my daughter and her friends, Alex and Amanda, well, lets just say that after their first few bites the cake was more friend than foe.