Devilishly delicious birthday

This is a special weekend for us. We celebrate Doug's birthday of course. But we also reflect on the night twelve (OMG, TWELVE) years ago, when we first met. The night I crashed -- that's right, crashed -- his twenty-[censored] birthday party.

Mind you, that story sounds a lot more romantic when he tells it: "she showed up on my doorstep." Awww... Whether you're grinning or gagging right now, you're probably feeling the right thing.

At the start of last week, his story was, he didn't want a birthday cake. Say what?! I would be super depressed if I didn't have a birthday cake. I insisted. He relented. "How about something chocolate?" Speak to me, baby. The language of love.

Devil's food. I could get behind that. It would mark my first foray into the world of Baker's chocolate. It would press me and the KitchenAid to our greatest challenge yet. It would be scary. It would be messy. It would be epic.

So I got myself a recipe, consulting with Chef Google, and I got to myself to work making the magic.

NOTE: By "making the magic," I naturally mean, "obsessively following the directions." Which means I don't have much to say about the process -- the recipe's author did a bang-up job of that. Why re-invent the devil's food cake, you know?

But I couldn't resist the lure of visual proof...

Print recipe, stick to cupboard

Grease & flour trusty cake pan

Boil some water

Melt butter with chocolate

Cool, drool

Measure sugar, crack eggs

Cream eggs and sugar, worship mixer

Sift dry ingredients

 Add chocolate, make mess...

...of pot

...of self

...of mixer

...of counter

...even of the freakin floor!

Add water, end up with this

NOTE #2: After I'd slung chocolate over half the kitchen, I realized, better I should put down the camera and focus on getting the dry ingredients into the bowl. Wisdom.

Add milk/vinegar mixture. Hey neato! It fizzes!

Pour into pan

Don't waste a drop

NOTE #3: Thanks, babe, for using valuable birthday time to take some chocolate action photos.

Pop into oven, take well earned break

Cool

Frost

Gobble

Devil's food cake from scratch, bitches. I don't even feel bad about gloating. Well I take that back. It was Doug's day after all. But I absolutely don't feel bad about eating cake for breakfast today. Again.

Scary? A little. Messy? A lot. Complicated? Kinda. But you know what? I wouldn't call it difficult.

I would call it delicious. And totally worth it.

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