My friend, Mary, fractured her ankle while trying to kill a spider and despite being excruciating pain she managed to write this hysterical blog about it. I wanted to make something to cheer her up and I know she is a "chocolate girl" so a chocolate cake was an obvious choice. I went with the recipe on the back of the Hershey's cocoa instead of The Cake Boss one which I love because I didn't have all of the ingredients and I wanted something a little faster.

Besides, a recipe labelled as Perfectly Chocolate has to be good, right? Now a plain old chocolate cake would have made her smile, but I believe laughter is the best medicine, so instead of a sheet cake or layer cake I made this:

Yeah, I know it is reeeeeaaaaallly ugly. In my defense, I was rushing it to get it over to her house and back home before the Dora movie started. Why I taught that kid to tell time I will never know! All day long he whined about that movie starting at 4! Anyway, I only had 7 black licorice ropes and after debating adding one or two red ones or making two short legs and the rest long I went with all short. Wrong choice.

Ultimately, I was banking on the fact that it was a spider and that it tasted incredible would offset the ugliness. From all reports at her house and mine (we had the leftovers from the head), the cake was delicious! It was dark and moist and rich and best of all fast and easy to make.

One word of warning: the batter will seem far too thin when you add the boiling water - DO NOT add more flour! It is supposed to be that way. Trust me. More importantly trust the bakers at Hershey's. It will be fine once it bakes. I promise, the recipe below is correct.

Until next time, happy eating.
~Audrey