Eat a chocolate cake with a spoon {or my fingers. A bucket list post}

Ok before I start saying anything I have to say: This. Is. The. BEST. Cake. I. Ever. Had/Made. EVER.! Do I have your attention? Thank you!

So, with everything that was coming up recently, it just felt right to tackle that point on my bucket list. I don't know when I had started to dream about eating a whole cake with my fingers (or just a fork) but I guess it's some time by now (haha is that weird?). In my mind, it always was a romantic night with my boyfriend, it was smelling heavenly of  freshly baked chocolate cake and in the spur of the moment we would dig in the cake with just our forks, not bothering to cut pieces and ending up having our faces covered in chocolate icing, cake crumbs and huge smiles. That combines quite a bucket of cheesy, doesn't it? Well, sometimes, I have to admit, I do like it cheesy.
So since the whole thing didn't seem to happen that way, I decided I would take a step and help fate a bit. And who else, but some of my closest friends could be just as good to savour this whole cake-point. And with this Thursday also being our 'last' girls evening (we're talking of years and years of Thursday-traditions!!!!) it was more than appropriate.
Therefore, when I stumbled across this recipe, I just knew it was perfect. I love (no wait, is there something stronger than love? In case you come up with something, insert it here!) chocolate. And I also love coffee. So the combination of a chocolaty-coffee-ish cake base, the chocolate mouse centre/layer and the lighter milk chocolate frosting, could it get any better?!

Except for a few subs of things and tiny changes, I didn't have on hand, and the fact that I divided the recipe in half (I wanted a smaller and more compact cake) I pretty much stayed with the original recipe. Head over here (the recipes are a-m-a-z-i-n-g!!!) for the original version or read on for my to-gram-translated-cut-in-half-and-substituted recipe here.

For the cake base (1/2 of it)

• 42gr butter
• 85gr sugar
• 1/2 flask (those tiny German ones) vanilla essence
• pinch of salt
• 85gr flour
• ~1 'heaped' teaspoon baking powder
• 25gr cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup coffee
• 1/4 cup buttermilk (substituted by milk mixed with lemon juice)
• 1/4 cup sour cream (substituted with cream cheese)

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F/ 180°C
2. Beat together butter, sugar, salt and vanilla essence until light and fluffy.
3. Add flour, baking powder and cocoa powder.
4. Soften again with the coffee, the buttermilk and the sour cream.
5. Put in for 35-40 (I needed 40) minutes and test with a wooden tooth pick.
6. (Can you tell I go easy with the whole cake-batter-mixing-rules haha).

The cake was easily thrown together and I made it the day before so that I would just have to assemble the rest with the creams. Yeah, right. "Just".

My cake base the evening before 'the day' ;P (and yeah, you can totally see all my test-poking-holes haha).

For the chocolate mousse 
I completely followed the recipe here, so I'll provide you with only the link again. 
A few side notes: This included a lot of beating/mixing. Also, somehow I think my mousse didn't had the right consistency at the end, though it still worked and for sure tasted amazing. I think it might be that my honey as well as my chocolate weren't as hot as they might have needed to be. (?)

The kitchen in between. Quite a mess....

For the frosting adapted from Martha Stewart's Milk Chocolate Frosting
This is slightly adapted because a) I somehow switched of my brain while I divided the recipe into thirds (my experience with Martha Stewart recipes is, that they always make more than plenty. My 1/3-version still left me with left overs!)  and used my 3/4 cup instead of my 1/3 cup (my frosting ended up with a slight amount of more sugar *cough*) and b) I didn't have any sour cream nor cream cheese! I went with no-fat curd...which worked surprisingly well (probably because it balanced out all the sugar).

• 140gr milk chocolate
• 3/4 cup sugar
• pinch of salt
• 160gr butter
• 2 1/2 tablespoons curd (Quark)

1. Beat together butter, salt and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Add the melted chocolate and the curd. 
3. Beat again until light and fluffy.

So. This was not just the best cake I ever had/made but also the most time consuming. It actually wasn't as complicated as I had feared but the three different batters, plus all the different melted and separated ingredients just made up for quite a lot of dirty dishes. Definitely a special-occasion-cake but don't be shy! This is totally manageable!!!
Oh, I also didn't go with the 'diamond' shaped centre form because it just didn't appeal to me. I simply cut of the top, hollowed the rest of the cake, filled in the mousse and put the top back on. After that, cover everything with icing ;)

And let me tell you, eating a cake without cutting, just with your forks and fingers is amazing!!!!
(Btw: This was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so I might actually have eaten chocolate cake until I got sick that evening. Whupsa...but so worth it!)

And this is what was left afterwards for future-mixed-deserts. If you have questions, don't be afraid to ask :)