Moist chocolate cake

The first chocolate cake i've ever tried baking was Sachertorte and i failed pretty badly eventhough hb tried to cheer me up by saying, 'not so bad afterall'. Well, let's just say that i do know when i fail and when i don't :P

That was almost 2 years ago. Yesterday, i tried again (my first attempt of baking chocolate cake after my Sachertorte). Baked this..

A recipe from my bestie, Carol *muaks*..

Moist and very chocolatey inside. Heaven.

At first, i thought i failed miserably, again. Carol told me it needed to be baked for only 40mins at 180 but it didn't. I reduced the temperature to 150 and covered with foil losely. After an hour, the skewer came out dirty. After 1 1/2 hour, it still came out dirty. I almost gave up.

Finally after 1 hour 40 mins, it was done. The top got real ugly. Cracked and slightly burnt. After the cooling process, i decided to cut the top off (we finished the unwanted top under 10 mins!), about 1.5 inch so it would look more presentable when i do the decoration which was val rhona chocolate ganache and some cutesy strawberries sugar paste ($4!) which i bought last week from BIY plus 'snow' effect.

I waited till hb came back before i cut the cake. Wanted to impress him. Haha. Anyway, we had the unwanted portion so no hurry.

Hb's face expression went from normal to yucky-what-is-that look when he took his first bite. I almost wanted to scream at him! Before i did, he said this, 'This is...[paused] better than Lana Cake' with a dead tone. Ugh. Kabish. Piak. Kick. Seriously, this guy should be whacked! Cheeky right?

Somehow i managed to grin from ear to ear upon hearing that instead of whacking him for his cheekiness. Half way while eating the cake, he looked up and fixed me with that boyish grin of his, not to mention the twinkle he had in his eyes.. for almost 15secs before i retorted 'WHAT!'. Hhmm.. :D