Currently baking out of Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook by Leslie Mackie

I don’t really know what to say about this cake. It took three (three!) sticks of butter, 2 cups of cocoa powder and more than 3 cups of sugar. It baked for almost two hours and weighed more than any decent cake should. It was dark, chocolatey and rich and had a texture more fudgy than cake-like.

And yet, I didn’t really like it all that much. As the cake cooled down, the texture became dry, almost chalky, and I didn’t like the cherries in it. I didn’t make the chocolate glaze (I forgot to get the cream at the grocery store), but I don’t think that would have made much difference.

But the batter. Oh my. I could have eaten THAT by the spoonful. The batter had a lot of promise and I’m wondering how it would do as cupcakes with some sort of filling (raspberry? orange? vanilla whipped cream?). Here’s another recipe that is just begging to be tweaked.