When we were in Madeira, Nathan and my grandma talked about having chocolate cake almost every night. I don't know why chocolate cake was their fixation (Nathan prefers white cake with chocolate icing), but after we got back I decided to make him one. And what better time to bake a cake then Valentine's Day? OK, so I have a confession. This cake wasn't actually from scratch, but I'm counting my 101 in 1001 anyway. The cake was from a box but the icing was from scratch! And it was DELICIOUS. I might have eaten a few spoonfuls after I iced the cake. Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup butter or margarine 2/3 cup baking cocoa (I used Ghirardelli, which was probably why it was so chocolaty) 3 cups powdered sugar 1/3 cup milk 2 tbsp brewed coffee (I left this out because I forgot to get it, but I bet coffee would have made the icing even richer!) 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract 1/2 tbsp almond extract (THE secret! Almond extract makes everything better)

After decorating this cake, I realized that I definitely do not have a career as a cake decorator in my future. I would lose on Food Network's Last Cake Standing. It kind of looks like the cake has a bowl cut from those strawberries. I'm pretty sure the judges wouldn't think that was cute. Plus, half of the strawberries fell off the top.

The good news? It still tasted delicious. :)