Chocolate cake

A cake is not Hiroko's favorite dessert to make. She is scared to make sponge cake because she doesn't own an electric mixer (which is a most useful gadget to have when whipping and mixing butter, egg, and sugar). That's her excuse not to attempt baking cakes. However, she realized that if she never tries, then she will never improve her skill, either.

After avoiding her loan baking fear for many years, she was moved to face it when Rick requested a chocolate cake for his birthday. At first, she didn't really want to make it, but then she decided it was time to take on the challenge.

Instead of the plain and typical chocolate sponge cake, which required her to whip egg and whites, Hiroko discovered a recipe for the cake using buttermilk, which didn't require whipping the eggs.

This recipe from December 2005 issue of Food & Wine uses coffee and butter milk to create a moist, rich and fudgy cake. She used Scharffenberger's bittersweet chocolate for her frosting and it was very dense and VERY chocolatey. As you can see in the photograph above, it wasn't the most professional looking, but it was delicious and it completely satisfied our chocolate craving. It was Hiroko's first try and she was happy with the results for a first effort. And now that she has overcome her fear of baking chocolate cakes, her only remaining fear is maintaining her waistline...