There are a few things that make my basic chocolate cake recipe different from others, but before I get into the details, I should write a bit about the type of chocolate cake we are dealing with. This is not one of those, multi-layered, fancy-pants chocolate cakes. I'm not much good with those. This is a simple, relatively unassuming chocolate cake. An everyday chocolate cake that you might not make everyday. It is chocolate-packed, moist, not-too-complicated and delicious. I bake, frost, and serve it in one pan - typically a Pyrex I picked up at a yard sale years ago. It has no added sugar in the cake or frosting (I use maple syrup), and whole wheat pastry flour is used in the batter. A generous slather of fresh, chocolate-whipped cream frosting tops it all off (also maple sweetened).
You will want to refrigerate any leftover cake that has been frosted. I should also mention that as the cake chills it become more and more truffle-like in texture. Feel free to let it come back up to room temperature if you like a more crumb-like texture. Likewise, the frosting will set up as it chills, but stays billowy and light at room temperature.
I've been trying to develop more recipes like this one. Cakes, tarts, cookies and treats that approach the sweeteners and flours a bit differently than most traditional recipes - less refined sugar, less white flour, etc. Let me know if this is something you're interested in seeing more of, and I'll keep posting the best-of what I come up with.
