Chocolate Cake

March Madness around here involves New York Times Cooking and chocolate cake. A recipe for Chocolate Whiskey cake by Melissa Clark via Marti Buckley Kilpatrick and Dol Miles came up for St Patrick's Day desserts and I, intrigued by the success of Guinness and chocolate, baked it. Accessible at first sight by the phrase, "comes together quickly",  the whole idea lies in complicated flavor. Chocolate, whiskey, coffee, black pepper and cloves mix for chocolatey deliciousness.

I added an extra ounce of Valrhona Guanaja 70% to the heated coffee, whiskey and cacoa mixture, then, in the recipe, came to the mini chocolate chip ingredient.  Very many kinds of chocolate inhabit my cupboard and mini chips are not one of them. Chopping up Guittard bittersweet chocolate baking wafers, and adding 30% more, I noticed some of the wafers were big; like five mini chips in one piece. The single layer baked up moist and dense and those chocolate pieces barely registered in the texture department.  Cake on the counter day three saw big wafer pieces standing out from the slightly dryer and still delicious taste.

Where was I? The Cake tasted delicious; chocolatey, boozy, spicy.  The tasters agreed; excellent chocolate cake with notes of whiskey and spice.