Death By Chocolate Cake

When I came across a similar cake on Pinterest I knew that I had to add this one to the arsenal of creations I wanted to make for the dessert auction at our church. I've been itching for a reason to make this cake, and raising money for a missions team seemed like the perfect cause!

I now present to you:

Death By Chocolate Cake

Here's how I made it:

I baked a two triple chocolate fudge cakes separately in a 12 cup bundt pan. I originally intended to use a round pan but I couldn't locate my round pans when started to work on this cake, but I could find a random bundt pan... go figure! This kind of describes my life sometimes!

I used two boxed cake mixes. Because, well, boxed cake is easier than homemade cake. I was going for the cutest look I could muster in the shortest period of time since I was also working on several other cakes simultaneously. Feel free to substitute your favorite recipe in here instead.

And I used two because the cake wasn't dramatic enough for me with just one layer. I placed the cooled layers bottom sides together with a layer of frosting in between. You may notice that my cake layers are different colors. That's because they're two different brands of triple chocolate fudge cake mix. One was Duncan Heines, one was Betty Crocker. I had only anticipated doing one layer, but luckily I already had another box of the same kind of cake mix on hand, which made the decision to do two layers a little easier.

Using two different brands meant that I didn't have to shower or get out of my pajamas to run to the store. That's my kind of fix to a precarious dilemma! Who cares if the layers don't match when it's topped with 182 pounds of chocolate?

Then I frosted each layer with... yup, you guessed it... canned chocolate frosting. I put a thick layer of chocolate frosting around the edges and embedded a blend of milk chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate and dark chocolate chips, as well as dark chocolate chunks into the side by grabbing a handful of chips at a time and literally smashing them against the side of the cake.

Obviously you could use just one kind of chocolate chip, but I thought I'd shake things up a little, and I had a lot of random baking chips on hand from my holiday baking.

If your house is too warm or frosting is too thin the chips might fall right off. If need be, briefly (just a minute or two) refrigerate the frosted cake before putting the chips on. Or put the chips on then refrigerate for a few minutes to help them set securely in the side of the cake.

Next I grabbed some random chocolate candies that I thought would compliment each other well. I got a big box of whoppers, some mini reeses peanut butter cups (which I thought looked extra cool!) and a package of mini sized candy bars that included twix, milky way, milky way dark, snickers and 3 musketeers. I also grabbed a few brown m&m's and some mini chocolate chips from our stash on hand to fill in the little gaps. 

I set the whoppers haphazardly in a circle around the cake to give some definition to where the top ended and the sides should begin. I also thought the melted chocolate would look cool coming over the rounded candies. Then I made an attempt to evenly distribute the other candies throughout starting with the largest pieces first and filling in the gaps with the smaller ones.  

After I got all of the candies placed neatly (yet randomly) on top, I melted some chocolate melty wafers (though chocolate chips or almond bark would do as well) and piped it in a criss cross pattern across the top. I tried not to put too much melted chocolate on top so the individual candies would still be noticeable. 

You can do this by melting the chocolate and placing it in a ziplock baggie, then making a small cut in the corner of the bag.

Finally,  I generously drizzled the melted chocolate over the sides making sure to let some of the chocolate fall toward the bottom of the cake. As if this cake needed any more chocolate!

After all was said and done I took a damp paper towel and wiped the random bits of chocolate off the side of my cake stand to clean things up a little. Then I took 63 pictures of the cake to make sure I got exactly the pictures that I wanted for this tutorial because I'm a blogger, and that's what bloggers do!

This would be a super way to get rid of some of the Easter, Halloween or Christmas candy that comes through the door. This particular cake is low fat, low carb and low calorie. Enjoy a slice guilt free!

And if you'll buy that I'll (sing it with me now...) throw the Golden Gate in free.