This is the second time I’ve participated in a blog hop!  The first time we were doing soup/stew/chili recipes.  You can see the sausage minestrone soup recipe I shared then by clicking here.  I want to thank Leslie from Onceuponatimehappilyeverafter.com for once again hosting the link-up!

If you’ve landed here from Dani’s blog, thank you so much for stopping by to check out my offering!  While the title in the graphic above says “Favorite Treats”, I can’t exactly call this recipe a “favorite” because I made it for the first time two days ago on Valentine’s Day.

If you pull up my Pinterest board titled “Gotta Try This Recipe!” you can find a pin called “Mini Chocolate Sheet Cake for Two with Raspberry Frosting”.  I saved that pin quite a while ago, as in two years or more ago.  I’ve been wanting an occasion to try it, and Valentines Day seemed just right.  I love cake, but the recipes always make a cake too big for just Big Eagle and me to eat.  So the “for Two” part of the title intrigued me.  And then chocolate and raspberry?  Oh, yes!  That’s a combination I could definitely go with!

You can imagine my dismay when I clicked on the pin to go to the recipe at “A Cozy Kitchen” to find that the author of the blog changed that post to a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  However, when I was searching through recipes I had printed out to find a “favorite” to use in this swap, I was thrilled to see that I had had the foresight to print out the recipe for the cake with the raspberry frosting!  So without further delay, let’s get to it!

 

Cake Instructions

The ingredients for the cake: 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 2 teaspoons instant espresso, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 3/4 teaspoon baking powder, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 2 large eggs, 1/2 cup buttermilk, 1/2 cup warm water, 1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.  I accidentally pictured the raspberries and sprinkles, too, but those are actually ingredients for the frosting.

Begin by preheating the oven to 350 degrees, and grease and line an 8X8 cake pan with parchment paper.  My prepared pan is in the picture above.

Before I started mixing anything, I washed the raspberries for the frosting and let them drain while I worked on the cake.

 

Begin making the cake batter by placing the flour, sugar, cocoa, espresso, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.

Mix with a fork or whisk until combined, or if you use a stand mixer like I did, mix on low speed until combined.  Make sure you use the LOWEST speed or it’ll fly everywhere since these are all dry ingredients!

 

Next add the eggs, buttermilk, water, oil, and vanilla extract.

Mix until smooth.

Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan, and bake it for 20 – 25 minutes.

Right after I got the cake batter into the oven, I mixed the raspberries with 3 tablespoons of sugar in a small baking dish.  I baked them in the oven alongside the cake for 12 minutes.  They looked like this when I took them out:

My cake actually took about 8 minutes longer to bake than the recipe said.  I don’t know if that’s because I had the raspberries in there with it for a while.  But it took that long before I was able to get a toothpick inserted in the center to come out clean.  Once the cake is done, let it cool in the pan for about 5 minutes.

After the 5 minutes is up, invert it onto a rack to finish cooling completely.

 

Frosting Instructions

Now here are the ingredients for the frosting: 3/4 cup unsalted butter, 3 cups powdered sugar (sifted), pinch of salt, 1/2 pint raspberries, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon heavy cream, sprinkles to garnish.

This picture shows the raspberries after they have been pureed.  Remember right after I got the cake in the oven, I combined the raspberries with the 3 tablespoons of sugar and baked them?  Well, after they had completely cooled, I made them into raspberry puree by following these next steps.

Raspberry Puree Instructions

Once the baked raspberries have cooled, place them along with their juices into a blender.

Puree them until smooth.  Place a strainer over a small bowl, and pour the puree into the strainer.

Next I used a spatula to move the puree around in the strainer in order to remove the seeds.

Here is what I had left in the strainer when I was done.  I discarded these seeds.

 

Frosting Instructions Continued

Now to make the frosting place the butter in a large bowl, and sift in the powdered sugar.

Starting on low (so the powdered sugar doesn’t fly everywhere), then increasing the speed on the mixer as the butter and sugar combine, beat until smooth.  This took a little over 2 minutes for me.

Now add the raspberry puree, the heavy cream, and the pinch of salt, and beat until smooth and fluffy, another 2 minutes or so.

Pour the frosting on top of the cake, and spread it to the edges.  Top with some sprinkles.

Final Product!

And here is the finished cake!

It kind of looks like Valentines, doesn’t it?  I was wishing I had been able to find some heart-shaped sprinkles.

This is what the weather was doing outside that day:

So it was a great day to be INSIDE baking something in the oven!

It was also a good day to enjoy a piece of cake with a hot cup of coffee!

Or maybe you prefer milk with your cake.  One thing I realized, though, is that even though the recipe title said the cake was for two, it’s still too much cake for just Big Eagle and me.  It will still probably take 4 or 5 days for us to eat all of it, but we are definitely enjoying it!

Now this IS a blog hop, so I hope you’ll hop along with me over to Jo’s blog at andanyways.com and let’s see what she has whipped up for this recipe swap!

Thanks for reading!  Keep warm!