Surprise Cake

I'm not much of a cake person.  Don't get me wrong, I have nothing at all against cake. It is a dessert therefore it falls into my favorite food category!  I've always been more of a pie lover.  As a matter of fact, for my birthday one of the things that Mars does is to bake me a birthday pie.  My choice usually. There have been peach pies and cobblers, lemon meringue, chocolate, various cheesecakes (cause really aren't they a pie?) and lots more I can't remember.  It's become a tradition that I love.  Now with that being said, I ran across a recipe on.... you guessed it .... All Recipes!   It's called Surprise Cake.  What's the surprise you ask?  Well the surprise ngredient in it is cayenne pepper!  Yep! Cayenne pepper.  So without further ado, I give you one of the best cakes I've had in at least 10 years.

Surprise Cake

Ingredients

    2 cups white sugar
    2 cups all-purpose flour
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    1 cup butter
    1 cup water
    3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
    1/2 cup sour cream
    2 eggs
    1 teaspoon baking soda
    1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
    
    1/4 cup butter, melted
    1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
    2 cups confectioners' sugar
    1/4 cup milk
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan.
    In a large bowl, combine sugar, flour and salt. Set aside.
    In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup butter, water and 3 tablespoons cocoa to a boil. Remove from heat. Add to flour mixture and beat until smooth.
    In a separate bowl, Mix sour cream, eggs, baking soda and cayenne pepper. Add to the cake batter. Blend well. Pour batter into 9x13 inch pan.
    Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 20 to 30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.

    For the Frosting: Melt 1/4 cup butter, add 1/3 cup cocoa. Add confectioners sugar, milk and vanilla. Mix until smooth and free of lumps.
    Spread frosting on the cooled cake. Cut into squares and serve. Ask your company if they can guess what is in it, they never will.

I didn't have any sour cream so I substituted cream cheese in this.  The result was one of the best chocolate cakes I've had in a long time!  It has an almost brownie like texture to it which I really like.  I'll be honest about the frosting though.  I followed the recipe exactly and it came out really thin and runny. I ended up adding at least another cup of powdered sugar and it still was kind of thin.  Next time (oh heck yeah there WILL be a next time) I think I might try a cream cheese frosting for it.  Maybe a butter creme... hmmm I'm going to have to think on that one a bit.  Anyway, this recipe is a keeper!

Once again I forgot to take a picture of it and by the time I thought about it there wasn't anything to take a picture of.  Well, I guess I could have taken a shot of the empty pan but I didn't want you to see the tongue impressions where I tried licking the pan..... Stop laughing, you would have done the same thing!  There WAS chocolate involved.....
       ~~~~~~ Hey ... I'm Just Sayin' ... ~~~~~~