Easy Recipe Thursday: Birthday Special!

Today we celebrated Hubby's birthday! We had a wonderful day together. The kids did all the planning. They made homemade cards and poems for him, decorated, and chose the meal (Daddy's favorite pizza from an AWESOME local Mom and Pop pizza place). I made the yummiest cake (I will share the recipe below). First, I wanted to share Drama Queen's poem, which was written 100% by herself with no input from me (I have added a couple of comments in brackets):

Today Is Daddy’s Birthday

Today is Daddy’s birthday
For us to celebrate.
We’ll have some cake and candles
And I can “bearly” wait! [Daddy often calls her "Little Bear"]

I love Daddy truly,
I love him quite a bunch.
I wish today was Saturday,
Together we’d eat lunch!

I like Daddy’s moustache,
It’s nice and big and brown.
Whenever he is happy
He never makes a frown!

He takes us on a doo ride [This was Pete's word for "scooter ride" when he was little]
And we have so much fun.
We drive around the country
Until the day is done!

Sometimes we have movie night
And it is very great.
Then Daddy tucks me in at night
When it is very late!

I REALLY love my daddy,
That’s all I can talk about.
I really, really love him
Inside and out!

Here is the cake I made, in all its chocolatey glory:


(Yes, this is my own picture of the actual cake I made! Ain't it fancy?)

And here is the recipe from Allrecipes.com. By the way, this recipe is wheat and gluten free! No one in our family has issues with this; it's just an awesome cake! I was looking for a recipe similar to a flourless chocolate cake we had years ago at the old Berghoff restaurant in Chicago. I've found it! This is rich, dense and fudgy. It has a nice, dark flavor. I have never cared for dark chocolate, but I love this cake. The original recipe included a caramel sauce, but I left it off because I felt it competed too much with the rich cake.

Warm Flourless Chocolate Cake

• 1 cup butter, cubed
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 6 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter the bottom of a 10 inch springform pan, and line with parchment paper. (I used a 9 inch springform and it turned out fine.)

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Stir in chocolate, and continue to stir until almost melted. Remove from heat, and stir until melted and smooth. In a large bowl, stir together 1 1/4 cups sugar and the cocoa powder. Whisk in the eggs until well blended, then whisk in the chocolate and butter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for about 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife or toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. (Do not overbake! Set your timer for 35 minutes and test every two minutes. You can thank me later. Mine went from a runny, wet toothpick to a completely dry toothpick in 5 minutes!) Cool cake in the pan over a wire rack. Run a knife around the sides of the pan to loosen the cake, then remove the sides of the pan, and invert onto a serving plate. Remove the parchment paper. If desired, sprinkle with powdered sugar and garnish with strawberries or raspberries.

Serve warm with whipped cream (Cool Whip kind of reduces it from "regal" to "redneck"), raspberry sauce or vanilla bean ice cream.