In case you were unaware, March is my birthday month!
I normally like to celebrate as many times as possible, going to as many restaurants as people feel like taking me to, eating as much as people feel like feeding me.
This year was no bueno.
I woke up on my birthday with a sore throat, but thought it was allergies or a cold coming on. I popped some Sudafed and felt better in a couple hours, then met my lovely coworkers for lunch and found I didn’t have much of an appetite. Uh oh. That usually does mean I’m getting sick. (I mean, I always have an appetite.) So I went to my next task for the day, which was some pampering at the salon. I got my hair cut and a pedicure. And halfway through the pedicure I could feel the medicine wearing off and I just started spiraling downwards, and fast.
By the time I got home an hour or so later, I had cancelled my birthday dinner plans with my family at a new steakhouse I’d found. Such a sad. ? I ended up spending the night on the couch fighting off a fever that got as high as 103.7 at one point. By the time I went to bed, I thought my fever had broken, but it got up again pretty high overnight. Ugh.
I ended up cancelling my dinner plans the next night with my girl squad. More sad. I went to the doctor and they diagnosed me with strep. Wah!!
Also ended up cancelling my dinner plans a couple days later with the rest of my family!
My birthday sucked this year!
But I’ve been trying to make up for it since. We had a couple of make-up dinners, but it’s never the same as when you’re in the birthday spirit. By a week later my birthday spirit had abandoned me and it just felt like another dinner out. I have a make-up dinner with my girl squad next Friday. And then all the make-ups are done. lol
Well anyway. To get to the point of the recipe. I fought and fought and fought my kid on the 12 New Treats recipe for this month. My argument was, hey, it’s my birthday month, we should make something that I choose. And everything I picked, she shot down. ? I finally just put my foot down and said NO. WE ARE MAKING THIS FUDGY CHOCOLATE CAKE. LOOK HOW DELICIOUS IT LOOKS. NO? OK. WELL THEN YOU DON’T HAVE TO EAT IT. THIS IS WHAT WE ARE MAKING.
And like all the other make-ups I had to do for my birthday, this cake also got delayed until this weekend! Well, it was worth the wait!!
I messed up the recipe though. I put too much cocoa in. It didn’t taste bad at all. It was very chocolatey, obviously, but it wasn’t a problem with me. This recipe was super easy and, I noticed, has no eggs in it, so if you are looking for an egg-free chocolate dessert, this could be it!
We of course topped it with vanilla ice cream and it was da bomb.
You can find the original recipe //here//.
Ingredients
1¼ cups granulated sugar, divided
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup Hershey’s Cocoa, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
⅓ cup unsalted butter, melted
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
½ cup packed brown sugar
1¼ cups hot water
Vanilla ice cream, if desired for serving
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine ¾ cup of the granulated sugar, flour, ¼ cup of the cocoa, baking powder and salt. Stir in milk, melted butter and vanilla and mix until smooth.
3. Pour the batter into an lightly greased 2-quart ceramic dish or a 9-inch square baking pan (if it’s a non-stick pan, you don’t have to grease it) and spread evenly.
4. In a small bowl, stir together the remaining ½ cup granulated sugar, brown sugar, remaining ¼ cup cocoa and mix well. Sprinkle this mixture evenly over the batter in your dish or pan. Microwave the water for 2-3 minutes, until very hot, but not boiling or simmering. Pour the hot water over the top – but do not stir!
5. Bake 35-40 minutes if using a ceramic dish (or 30-35 minutes if using a metal pan) – or until the center is almost set. Remove your dish from the oven and allow it to stand for 15 minutes.
6. After 15 minutes, spoon the cake into individual serving bowls – making sure to spoon the fudgy sauce from the bottom of the pan over the top of the cake. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream if desired and serve immediately.