Best. Chocolate. Cake. EVER!

I made this for a birthday at work. The BDay girl is a Huuuuuuuuuuge chocolate lover - the darker the better. So I searched long and hard for a dark chocolate cake. I ended up choosing the chocolate cake that had the biggest amount of cocoa that I could find, and used Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder instead of unsweetened that was called for.

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE CAKE (smittenkitchen)

3 oz. fine-quality semisweet chocolate (I used semisweet chocolate chips)
1 1/2 cups hot brewed coffee
3 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process) (I used Hershey's Special Dark cocoa)
2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups well-shaken buttermilk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla

Grease and flour round cake pans and line with wax paper. Combine chocolate with coffee and stir occasionally until melted.

Sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl beat eggs for a couple minutes until thickened. Add oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and coffee mixture to eggs, beating until combined well. Add sugar/flour mixture and beat just until combined.

Bake 300* for 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Place pans on cooling racks and leave cakes in pans until they are completely cool, then invert cakes onto racks. Cake layers may be made one day ahead and kept, wrapped well in plastic wrap, at room temperature.

The recipe called for two 10" rounds, but I only have 9", and there was a LOT of batter. My cake pans were over 3/4 full and I was worried they would spill over onto the oven. So I ended up filling up ramekins for mini chocolate cakes.

Man o man, this cake looks reallllly dark! I thought it was burned when it came out of the oven (it wasn't). It didn't really taste like dark chocolate (not bitter), but had the strongest chocolate flavor I've ever had in a chocolate cake. It was sooooo good. And that frosting - perfect. Really great consistency for spreading on the cake and really great flavor. Make it today and again and again any time you need a chocolate cake!

I found the frosting recipe on the back of the cocoa canister. It was PERFECT for this cake:

ESPECIALLY DARK CHOCOLATE FROSTING

1/2 c. butter or margarine
2/3 c. Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa
3 c. powdered sugar
1/3 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount of additional milk if needed. Stir in vanilla. Yields about 2 c. frosting.