Pink Yarrow

I decided to make a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for Papa's birthday. I went to the cupboard to look at my cake mix stash and - lo and behold - I have four boxes of yellow cake mix. Not surprising, because yellow cake is probably my least favorite cake flavor. So, plan B, make a chocolate cake from scratch. I find that chocolate cake is the easiest cake to make from scratch because the chocolate flavor can hide a lot of flaws. I used a cheat-sheet recipe from the angry chicken, or, I should say, I planned to use her recipe. I soon found out I was out of a lot of important ingredients. But, I had flour and eggs, so armed with "ingredient substitutions" this is what I made:

2 cups brown sugar (should be granulated sugar)
1-3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup mocha cocoa (should be cocoa)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup canola oil (should be vegetable)
2 teaspoons real maple syrup (should be vanilla)
1 cup boiling water
350 degrees, 30 minutes

#1 - I've never made a cake mix with boiling water before. The mix was really, really runny. The cake was really, really moist. I'm impressed!
#2 - Maple syrup can be used as a substitute for vanilla, but you can taste a hint of maple. In this case, it was d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s!
#3 - Brown sugar also changes the taste of a cake. It makes it taste, hmmm, strong... molasses-y.
#4 - This cake turned out great, all the substitutions worked really well together. It was moist, almost brownie-like (but not too dense) and that's how we like our chocolate cakes. The mocha, brown sugar and maple all worked together to make this a big, strong-flavored cake that's not to be messed with. One piece and you're satisfied for the night.

I also made chocolate frosting from the same cheat sheet, substituting mocha cocoa for regular cocoa, maple syrup for vanilla and omitting the espresso powder. YUM!