Blog Party 35: Ch-Ch-Ch-Chocolate!!

When Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness announced the theme for this month's Blog Party was chocolate I thought to myself, "Now how in God's Green Acres am I going to top last month's creations for the Buffy themed Blog Party!" Worse, how was I going to limit myself when next to scallops, fresh homemade bread, bacon, good gin, fine scotch, and strawberry rhubarb pie, there is nothing I love more than chocolate.

I decided to think on it for a few days and turn my attention to the sourdough recipes I was playing with in preparation for a certain group of Bread Baking Babes upcoming event. You do remember, I gave you a hint in May that when I was host kitchen, we would be doing a sourdough recipe from a homemade starter don't you?! Well, even though my turn as host kitchen was delay until this month, I hope you've got your starter going...but I digress.

Anyways, I was prepping about three different starters to play with the recipe and catching up on my blog reading when I noticed that Judy over at the always full of good recipes blog, Judy Gross Eats had this fascinating recipe for chocolate cake made with sourdough starter! Now you know me. I'm never one to turn down the opportunity to bake the most unexpected things with my sourdough toss-off and hey, wouldn't a nice chocolatey bundt cake be just the perfect thing to take the Blog Party!

So, I prepped one more bowl of starter from the toss off of all the others and set about to make what frankly was one of the moistest and terrific tasting chocolate cakes I've ever had in my entire life. The sourdough starter took on the same role in the recipe that sour cream normally does in a cake recipe. It made for a tangy/sweet but not too sweet cake that was the perfect pick me up for an afternoon coffee break.

I topped the cake with the dark chocolate frosting from the Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. I love this frosting. It is my "go to" chocolate frosting. It is easy to make and every bit as decadent as ganache or buttercream frosting. I then put some sliced almonds on top to decorate it.

So, to the party I'm going to bring a deep dark sourdough chocolate cake topped with dark chocolate frosting and sliced almonds.



For my drink, it has been so hot and humid around these parts the past week I think we all could use a drink guaranteed to cool us down and bring back those great memories of the first week of Summer Vacation from school, an ice cream float made with almost frozen Coca-Cola and Ben and Jerry's Vanilla ice cream. But, since we are all adults here, let's give it a bit of a twist by using 2 shot glass fulls of Godiva Chocolate liqueur!



Now aren't you glad you aren't a kid anymore!

Thanks Stephanie for inviting me to this month's edition of Blog Party. I can't wait to see what everyone else makes for us to eat and drink. I can pretty much guarantee we'll all be hopped up on chocolate by the end of the evening...