National Chocolate Cake Day!

Today was National Chocolate Cake Day! :)

I really wish that Costco still sold the All American Chocolate Cake. It was 7 pounds {!} of chocolate amazingness, and was the driving factor for us getting a Costco membership. And then they discontinued it. I went on a hunt to see if I could find a copycat recipe, and there was not much out there. I found one recipe that claimed it was the real deal, so I decided to give it a try. {Spoiler alert: this is NOT it}

Even though it was nowhere near our beloved chocolate cake, and my baking skills leave a lot to be desired, it was still fun to take a break from unpacking to bake in the kitchen with my kiddos. They were SO excited to help bake, but even more excited to eat the cake. After every step in the recipe, Maddie would ask, "can I eat it now?" Haha- she didn't quite grasp how drawn out the process was going to be :)

I let them taste the unsweetened chocolate: Eli pretended it was delicious, Maddie made a really bad face and said "that's not chocolate", and Aiden wanted no part of it after Maddie's reaction. Maddie and Aiden got bored with helping pretty quickly, but Eli stuck around for the whole process, carefully paying attention to every step.

Even though I baked it on the lowest time suggested, it was still overdone. The icing was too runny {and not at all the richness the recipe claimed}, and my chocolate shavings {used to cover the massive craters in the cake} basically just looked like chocolate dust haha. 

But my kiddos didn't care. They were excited to eat "their" chocolate cake! They were so proud of it! 

We had fun celebrating this silly holiday, making some fun memories in the process :)