An extra rich chocolate birthday cake

Every year, in October, I ask my mom what kind of cake she wants for her birthday and she always says, "You know I love chocolate." This year was no exception. She wanted a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. (You can check out my 2009 cake on my old blog posts.)

Sunday was her birthday and we enjoyed hosting a dinner in her honor. The highlight of the day was my mom, but the cake was very popular, too. 

You will notice that I was in a pretty big hurry while decorating the cake because I forgot to dot my i or cross my t. Kind of funny because no one noticed until the photo was taken!

I usually make the cocoa frosting on the back of the Hershey's Cocoa can, so when I looked on the can's back I noticed the old familiar recipe had changed a bit. It threw me for a minute but I decided to try it and see if it was as good as the old recipe. Actually, it was much better. More chocolatety, more yummy.

OK, I didn't exactly follow their recipe. I adjusted the ingredients and the amounts, as usual. (I don't think I am the only one who does that!) So this is my recipe based on the recipe on the back of the Hershey's can. My family said it was the best one I have ever used. I used my old standby yellow-cake recipe. 

Here is my adjusted Frosting recipe:

Extra-rich Cocoa Frosting

1-1/2 sticks butter, melted

1 cup cocoa, tightly packed

4-1/2 cups Confectioner's sugar, loosely packed

2/3 cup heavy whipping cream (more if needed to make frosting creamy)

1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter in the microwave on low. Mix butter, cocoa and vanilla extract together on low speed. Add sugar and cream alternately until well blended. (It may be necessary to add more cream to the recipe depending on humidity). Turn mixer on medium high and mix until mixture is creamy and is of spreading consistency.

Makes enough frosting to heavily frost a two-layer cake and lightly frost a three-layer cake.