Death by Chocolate Cake

Totally worth the hours of baking, waiting, pudding-cooking. I'm never ordering chocolate cake at a restaurant again!

We weren't patient enough to wait for the home-made pudding to beef up in the fridge...hence the messy insides - but still, it's the imperfections of the cake that make is SO home-y.

Moist, delicious, bitter-sweet, & beautiful. Here's the recipe too! Merry X'mas?

Pudding Ingredients
3 cups milk
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 tablespoons cocoa (preferably Dutch processed)
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
8 ounces semi sweet chocolate, finely chopped
3 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

Cake Ingredients
1 1/2 cups plus 1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa (preferable Dutch processed)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup brewed coffee, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

To make the chocolate pudding: Combine 2 cups milk with 4 tablespoons sugar in a small saucepan and bring to just under a boil.
In a mixing bowl, combine remaining sugar with salt, cocoa, and cornstarch. Whisk in remaining 1 cup unheated milk. Gradually whisk cocoa mixture into hot milk. Heat, over medium heat, stirring, until mixture thickens and starts to bubble.
Whisk together eggs and egg yolks in a small bowl. Temper the eggs by adding a few tablespoons of the heated milk. Add the tempered eggs to the saucepan and stir for 30 seconds. Remove from the heat and whisk in chopped chocolate and butter. The pudding should be relatively thick and will firm up when cooled. Cool, cover with plastic wrap and reserve in refrigerator for at least 2 hours (overnight is even better!).

To make the cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter 1 (9-inch) cake pan and line with parchment OR PAM it.
Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Reserve.
In a mixer with a paddle attachment, beat eggs and sugar until thick and lemon-colored. Beat in vegetable oil. Alternately add dry ingredients with buttermilk, scraping the bowl once or twice. Add the coffee and vanilla to form a thin batter. Divide between prepared cake pans.
Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cake comes out clean, about 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in pan for 15 minutes. Invert onto cooling racks, peel off paper and cool completely.
When cool, split cake in half with a serrated slicing knife. Spread bottom layer with the reserved chocolate pudding, layer cake on top, then spread another layer of pudding on top.

*optional: Sprinkle top with walnuts

*Note: You'll have lots of pudding left, but serve it on the side with a slice of cake so you can vary how "custardy" you want it to be. Alternatively, you can also just halve the pudding recipe. :)

Makes 12 servings