Food Network's A Year of Chocolate Blackout Cake With Chocolate Crunch for January

This was the look on my face when I saw my finished cake...

So like last years "a year of cakes" Food Network came out with "A year of chocolate". In the grand tradition of trying these recipes every month, I made the Blackout Cake with Chocolate Crunch for my dad's birthday. I really wanted this recipe to be fantastic, after all it was my dad's birthday!
You can find the recipe HERE. I do not have a picture of this cake because it was soooo awful I didn't want to remember it. It definitely was not photo worthy. It was a complete disaster.

I've made several double layered cakes in the past year, I've got some experience using my round cake pans, I've never had an issue with them. But this cake recipe was considerably less dense then my usual cake recipe and it stuck. But it didn't just stick in one area and was easily removed, no, this stuck all over except on the edges. So I was left with one salvageable cake which I managed to get out of it's pan in only 2 pieces.
I will say though, the cake recipe would be fabulous for cupcakes. Incredibly moist, light, fluffy, and even if they do stick it doesn't matter if they are in cupcake liners.

I should have known better when I started making this frosting, I'm not a first time baker by any means, and I know exactly what happens when you add melted chocolate and liquid. But I forged ahead anyway, thinking some how the corn syrup would prevent the inevitable. As I expected, the frosting ended up grainy, totally the opposite texture you'd like when you pop a spoonful of frosting in you mouth.  On the plus side it tasted ok, if you ignored the disgusting sandiness of it. Actually what was really neat about this frosting was that it was shiny, and stayed that way even after it dried up a little. It was pretty cool, I've never come across a frosting recipe that ended up like that without eggs and tons of mixing.

This didn't keep very well either. I have a beautifully simple cake saver my mom found at a dollar store in some random tiny town near our random tiny town. It's tall enough for a 3 layer cake with a little space at the top. It fits the size of my dinner plates perfectly which also happens to fit the size of my round cake pans. It has minimal clips and indentations so it is extremely easy to clean. I've never had an issue with a cake inside my little cake saver, they have all lasted at least a full week before I toss them. This cake lasted exactly 3 days. I opened it around 7pm on day 3 and found that mold had joined the party. Needless to say, it went in the trash along with my hopes and dreams of having chocolate cake that night, my waistline was thankful.

Overall, I did save this recipe, because it would create cupcake perfection. But I clearly marked on the sheet "DO NOT USE FOR CAKE!". Just in case my fabulous memory decides to forget that it is the worst layer cake recipe in the history of layer cake. I mean that's dramatic, it tastes wonderful so it isn't really that bad. What is that bad is the frosting recipe. I wouldn't even attempt it again, I'm not even sure how you would fix it, maybe use powdered cocoa instead of melting solid chocolate. Either way it's bad, just very very very bad.

So because I wasn't allowed to photograph this disastrous attempt here's a photo of my dog using my chair as a hammock. You're welcome.

How you doin'