Cafe Latte Turtle Cake

I love chocolate cake... love it! This past week, someone handed me a recipe while I was at the Veterans Hospital with my fiancee and it looked amazing. So, I decided to make it for our Easter celebration. His family had the celebration a week early this year, so it was yesterday.

The cake was a huge success, they ate the whole thing. I love it!! So good. The frosting is like eating fudge and the layers were very moist and chocolaty  without being too chocolate or too rich. This might be the chocolate cake I always make going forward! 

Cafe Latte Turtle Cake: 

Cake Ingredients: 

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 cup buttermilk

2/3 cup vegetable oil

2 cups all purpose flour

1 3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 TBS baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

1. Grease 3 9 inch cake pans with Crisco. Then dust them with cocoa powder as if you were flouring the pan. Preheat your oven to 350.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk, and vegetable oil.

3. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. 

4. Gradually beat the egg mixture into the flour. Your batter will have a brownie like consistency at this point. Scrape down the sides of your bowl. 

5. Gradually beat in the hot coffee. This will make your batter much thinner. Be sure to scrape the bottom of your bowl and the beater(s) and mix again to get all the thicker batter incorporated. 

6. Pour into your prepared pans and bake at 350 for 22 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted the center comes out clean. The batter will appear somewhat shallow in the pans. 

7.Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then remove the layers from the pans to cooling racks to cool completely. 

8. Build your cake, by layering cake, frosting, and caramel sauce as desired. Nuts would be a great addition to this cake. 

Caramel Sauce recipe here. 

Frosting recipe here.