I want to punt this chocolate cake.

So today I started trying out chocolate cake recipes for Jared and Heather's wedding. The only thing that is good about this cake is that I discovered a frosting recipe that I will not be using. Ever again. Ever.

I used the chocolate cake and chocolate cream cheese frosting recipes from the Georgetown Cupcake Cupcake Diaries cookbook. Chocolate cream cheese frosting just sounded SO GOOD to me and I know it's good when I get it at Georgetown Cupcakes but this is the most difficult icing I've ever worked with. It is hard and dry and refuses to be piped. Absolutely refuses. I was going to work on frosting roses today but that idea went straight out the window as soon as I felt this frosting. I had to get out the widest tips I had to pipe even a minimal amount of this icing.

But let's start at the beginning.

I baked two 6" layers of chocolate cake and it was from legit the most delicious cake batter I have ever tasted. I haven't tasted the actual baked/iced cake yet but I hope it lives up to how it tasted in batter form. So anyway, I baked off the two layers:

They smelled delicious so I hope they taste just the same.

Then while the layers cooled I made the frosting. The evil, evil frosting (it looks like chicken below, hahahahahaha):

Don't get me wrong...it tastes delicious. It tastes exactly like the filling in a Milky Way (minus the caramel). It's just SO HARD to work with. I torted the layers, filled them with raspberry jam, and attempted to dirty ice the cake...but this stupid frosting didn't want to stick to the cake. It just kept falling right off. I couldn't believe it. Finally I forced it to stick to the cake and put it in the fridge to cool. 

I tried piping when I took the cake out of the fridge but the cake was NOT having it. Well, the icing wasn't. I couldn't force the frosting through the small petal tip I was trying to use to make stripes on the cake or a rose. I switched the petal tip out for a large circle tip and piped a two pearl borders and then used a closed star tip to make some stars and some attempts at rosettes which also didn't work. Finally I decided to make a monogrammed cake for Jeremy and ended up with this...his monogram plus a little heart. Not the most fantastic thing I've ever produced. I'm still mad at the icing and my hand still hurts from piping. I also couldn't get the icing on the sides of the cake to smooth out. 

Oh, and can we talk about the leaning tower of cake here? I didn't do a great job of stacking this cake...