I love cake. Scratch that. I love food. But lately (meaning all the time) I’ve been craving chocolate.  The craving had originated when my life would be changed forever…I would eat my first (and not last) piece of Portillo’s Chocolate Cake. It was my neighbor’s birthday and they just so happened to offer me a piece since they “didn’t want leftovers.” I like to think of it as fulfilling my duty as a good neighbor by taking that piece and cherishing it. I don’t know anyone who denies cake, especially not me.

Mouth watering and eyes wide open, I took that first chunk of moist, warm, chocolate-frosted cake and I savored it until there was nothing left to savor. I’m not going to lie, I strongly believe I was reborn that day. I’m sorry, but you haven’t honestly lived until you’ve had a piece of that amazing goodness. So, I made mention a while ago that I wanted to make a chocolate cake with pudding for extra moisture. Well, hearing me out, my Step Dad had taken the liberty of buying a box of chocolate cake mix and a box of instant chocolate pudding. They’ve been sitting in the pantry for a few weeks now, taunting me and crying for me every time I open the door. It’s not that I didn’t want them, but that little devil in the back of my head kept saying, “Hannah, don’t do it! You could spend your calories on things so much more worth it!”

Haha, tonight I had to teach that devil whose boss. You might be thinking to yourself, “It’s just a mix out of a box, it’s no big deal.” Oh no my friends, you’re terribly mistaken. That saying “Big things come in small packages” is definitely what this was. So this was what the batter looked like after just adding 3 eggs, 1 1/4 C water, and about a cup and a half of the instant pudding (no oil!):

You haven’t seen anything yet. I originally cooked it for about 30 minutes, but clearly it wasn’t done. I would say it took about 45 minutes, but it was completely worth the wait. Being myself and adding something to the cake, of course, I just so happened to pull out our All Natural Bryers Vanilla and some caramel sauce to tie the whole thing together. And this is what my craving became:

 Thanks Mom for letting me guest post!  She’ll see you for breakfast!