As the resident cake baker in my circle of friends, I'm always trying to find something new and funky to make. I've been in a groove of no-cook fondant and marzipan figures, but this summer I got a challenge -- chocolate. Not being the biggest fan of chocolate cakes, I mostly stick to the many other flavors. However, my friend, she loves the dark and sinful treat. If she wanted chocolate, she was really going to get chocolate. Since she's also a skier, it would be served in a smooth, snowy package.

Death by Chocolate Cake, straight out of The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Chocolate, with white fondant, a marzipan skier, and some candles for wishing. Check out the gallery, peruse the recipe after the jump, and stay tuned for more information on the fondant and marzipan.

This time of year, I much prefer eating fruit-based desserts to ones involving chocolate or lots of cake. Give me a nice crisp or cobbler and I'm a happy girl. Despite those seasonal preferences, I saw this cake and immediately started salivating. There's no recipe link along with the picture, but I believe that it's the one from Nigella Lawson's gorgeous, slightly tongue-in-cheek cookbook, How to be a Domestic Goddess. It's a cake I've always intended to make, but have never gotten around to it. I think it's moving to the top of the list now, having seen this tasty reminder.

Thanks to Jonathan for adding this picture to the Slashfood Flickr pool!

Okay, I'm taking a big risk here. In addition to showing off my unattractive, massively egotistical side, I'm also going to put myself in danger of a little self-incrimination. Here goes:

When I'm sober and clear-headed, I'm a pretty decent cook, but when I'm seriously impaired, I am a culinary god. In all honesty, imagine Drunken Master with a baking sheet. I'm that good.

I've allowed my skills to deteriorate since I left grad school, but, once upon a time, my addled forays into the kitchen were widely regarded as moments of pure magic. Admittedly, impaired kitchen godhood wasn't a quick process: after mastering the beer-and-cabbage ramen dish that my friend Julie was famous for, I played with various crudite, cheese, and dip combinations before moving on to seriously impaired baking.

While I won't endorse BWI (baking while intoxicated) on the grounds that it is incredibly stupid, I have to admit that the biscotti that I produced at 3:00 in the morning with a houseful of goofy friends were truly amazing. Perfectly crisped, with just the slightest touch of anise, they were a great late-night snack, and the perfect accompaniment to the coffee that I would inevitably be guzzling the next morning.

Admittedly, my forays into the world of BWI were not without their dangers: piles of filthy bowls and measuring tools were common, as were flour-covered counters. More important, although I never burned a biscotti, there were a couple of times when it got pretty close. With that in mind, I was particularly impressed by Dizzy Dee's Five-Minute Chocolate Cake. A mix of six simple ingredients, the recipe uses a mug as both the mixing bowl and cooking vessel, which makes clean-up a lot easier. Also, the cake cooks in the microwave, so you don't have to worry about torching your dessert!

• Stephanie Shapiro takes a look at classic Baltimore fare and digs a little deeper to reveal that much of the food that is associated with the city isn't actually produced there anymore.
• One thing that is still growing in Maryland is tomatoes, ugly, gnarled, juicy and tasty tomatoes. Get 'em while they're ripe!
• In the Cooking 101 column, they're whipping up Chocolate Cake with Hazelnut Semifreddo, for an easy dessert that will impress the neighbors.
  
• Krystina Castella's book, Pops! Icy Treats for Everyone has been making the blog and newspaper rounds recently and this week, she's in the Balitmore Sun!
• We know that Elvis was a fan of fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, but did you know that he was also fond of meatloaf? Well, according to this recipe for his cook's meatloaf recipe, he way.
• Forgo the tuna sandwich and stir up these Summer Shrimp-Salad Sandwiches instead.
• Streuseled Fruit can be made quickly in the microwave out of all the ripe summer fruit. Sounds like the perfect quick summer dessert (as long as you are cool with cooking in the microwave).

• The world of tiny greens.
• French chef Guy Martin is about to open his first restaurant in Boston.
• What is a banh mi?
• This week's Taste Kitchen: Dijon mustards.
• Restaurant reviews: Angela's Cafe, The Landing, and 303 Cafe.
• The Plonk of the Month focuses on hearty reds.
• This week's recipes: Radish-Celery Salad, Beef Pho, and Flourless Chocolate Cake.

I've had so much sugar and carbs the past two weeks that I think I'm turning into a giant dessert. I feel so blah and bloated. Even my teeth have this weird feel to them, as if they're screaming eat a bowl of soup, will ya?!

So I'm not going to participate in National Whipped Cream Day, but you can feel free to do so (unless you don't want to break that New Year's diet you're on - you're still on that, right?). Here's a quick recipe for whipped cream from AllRecipes, and these recipes have whipped cream on top of them: Cranberry Chocolate Cake with Rummy Whipped Cream, Pumpkin Cake with Whipped Cream and Pecan Praline, and Cherry Chocolate Shortcakes with Kirsch Whipped Cream. Of course, Cool Whip is always good in a pinch (I know, it's whipped "topping" not cream). By the way, whatever happened to chocolate flavored Cool Whip? I used to love that. I'd freeze it and make a dessert out of just that.

And for those of you who do "other" things with whipped cream, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Chocolate and orange is a combination that you either love or hate. For some, the slight acidity of the citrus works really well with chocolate, both milk and dark, while others find the tastes to be dissonant. Fanny, from Food Beam, was a member of the latter camp until she decided to try making Bill Granger's Chocolate and Mandarin Cake. The cake is a nearly flourless chocolate cake, made rich with ground almonds and a bit of mandarin orange zest. There isn't enough zest to make the orange flavor overwhelming, although the bright flavor does come through the deeply flavored cake and is helped along by serving the cake with slices of mandarin. The only thing that Fanny doesn't share is what motivated her to go against her usual inclinations and try the recipe in the first place. Whatever her reason, it seems like it was a success.

Tall, rich and topped with a candle, this Chocolate Layer Cake from the Canadian Baker is enough to make me wonder if we should extend the tradition of adding candles to cakes to New Year's celebrations, in addition to our own birthdays. It's another birthday, in a way, for the earth - not to mention that it's kind of fun to eat cake, blow out candles and make a wish.

But getting back to the cake, it is a classic. The layers are moist, made with cocoa powder and buttermilk, and it is finished with a simple chocolate buttercream frosting. You can find the recipe here, but you might be able to find a cake just like this one at local bakery or a restaurant that specializes in classic comfort food. This type of cake is a great one to have in your recipe book because it can be brought out on so many occasions, from birthday (or New Year's) parties to Valentine's Dinners or casual family gatherings.

Around this time last year, a department store in Japan offered up a million dollar cake. This year's cake at the Takashimaya department store in Osaka is not quite as pricey, but is still nothing to sneeze at. The 14-inch high cake is studded with about 100 diamonds totaling 50 carats. The cake itself has a square chocolate base and a chocolate sculpture of some kind on top that makes it look like a showpiece - which, of course, it is.

The cake is priced at $848,600 or 100 million yen, but a spokesperson for the store said that the value of all the diamonds on the cake is much higher than its price tag. She also suggested that "it would be ideal if a man were to buy it as a present for his wife."

The cake has been on display for at least a few days now and will remain up through Christmas, even if it is sold before then.

[via spluch]

I don't recall the 2nd amendment being written into the standard set of wedding vows, but then again, I'm also not from Texas, where this cake was prominently featured at a real wedding this past weekend. The gun was carved from a chocolate cake layer and stacked on top of the chocolate cake base, then decorated with rich frosting. The base is actually the shape of a target from the IPSC, a group that supports sport shooting and marksmanship.

Perhaps it's a less-than-common choice for a wedding cake, but all things considered, it's great that people are taking these celebratory cakes in new and unusual directions. After all, there is no reason why you have to have a plain white cake with flowers when you can have wedding cupcakes, snack food towers or anything that you (and your new spouse) really enjoy.

[via boing boing]

I should really have warned any chocoholics to avert their eyes before reading this post because this ultra-rich chocolate truffle layer cake, photographed by Lori of Dessert Comes First, is one of the most tempting chocolate desserts in the blogosphere. The cake is from a bakery in Manila called "In Love With Sweets" and they have garnered themselves many fans with this cake. A bestseller, the cake is dense and very, very rich. It has four layers of cake and a very thick, truffle-like fudge frosting that melts into your mouth. The whole thing is topped with a chocolate truffle, but if you have a chance to indulge in this cake, you might want to eat the truffle first, because you won't have room for it if you've able to finish off a whole slice of cake.

Previous studies about the tempting nature of foods have always assumed that the brain functions the same way in all people, but it turns out that some people are more affected by images of food than other people are. When someone's "reward center" was over-activated by temptations - say, a picture of a delicious chocolate cake - they were more likely to give in to those temptations. The study noted that such a reaction could make people more susceptible to forms of marketing and product advertisement, as well as even to other addictions, like drug use or alcoholism.

I know that I prefer to see images of tempting foods in cookbooks and on blogs, but I think it gives me a greater appreciation for the food, not necessarily tempting me to overeat. Indeed, something that is perfectly presented might make me less likely to tuck in, not wanting to disturb the art-like arrangement on my place.  Have you ever been driven to overeat by a picture? Does this mean that we need to add a disclaimer to our Food Porn category?

This particular type of chocolate cake has many, many names: wacky cake, dump-it cake, one-pan cake, one-bowl cake, eggless cakes, easy chocolate cakes, vinegar cake. Though the ingredients vary from cake to cake, the concept is the same because all the recipes are for cakes made entirely in one bowl or even mixed directly in the pan. This means that it takes next to no time to prepare them and the cleanup is even less than it is for a cake mix - not to mention that you get a homemade chocolate cake in about an hour!

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's food section rounded up a group of bakers and put six one-bowl chocolate cake recipes to the test, including cakes from Martha Stewart and Nigella Lawson. The bakers had the same complaints about Nigella's recipe that I have had in the past, namely that her instructions aren't very clear and if you don't already know what you're doing, your cake can come out terribly. Martha's cake, which did use eggs, tasted great and the panel also loved a classic "crazy cake" recipe, which calls for vinegar and no eggs. The full results and winning recipes can be found here, and are a must-read for any baker or chocolate cake lover.

[Image Post Gazette]

The primary distinction between a muffin and a cupcake is frosting. A muffin has none and a cupcake is topped with gobs of it. So, what do you get when there is frosting inside the muffin/cupcake? A muffincake, of course! Morning Coffee and Afternoon Tea seems to have coined the term with a recipe for Irish Cream Filled Muffincakes. The rich chocolate cakes are made with a combination of butter and cream cheese, which brings an extra level of decadence to the cake itself. Once baked, a cavity was carved into the fluffy base and filled with an Irish Cream-spiked whipped cream cheese filling and topped with a cherry.

Since it has the word "muffin" in the name, does that mean I can still eat it for breakfast?

Chocolate and hazelnut is a nearly-unbeatable combination and among the most popular in the world of confectionery. It seems only natural to combine the flavors in other things, like spreading Nutella on toast, adding hazelnut syrup to a Starbucks mocha or baking a cake. Jessica, at Su Good Eats, tested not one but three different cakes using a hazelnut and chocolate flavor combination in a quest to come up with the best one. Not only are they delicious, but they are also lower in fat than your average cake - quite a feat considering that nuts are rather high in fat, even if it is the heart-healthy kind. Her favorite of the cakes was the above-pictured version of Nigella Lawson's Nutella Cake, which she describes as being almost like a solid slab of nutella: rich, smooth and flavorful. It is definitely the perfect cake to make for a special occasion or on a day when you are feeling just a bit decadent.