Coffee-Cocoa Snack Cake

 My chocolate craving got the best of me the other day, and I just wanted cake. But I didn't want to go to much trouble to make one. Walking through the grocery store, I saw all kinds of snack cakes to buy, and that reminded me of a recipe I had seen for a chocolate snack cake. I'll take homemade cake over store bought any day.When I went home, I found this recipe and decided to give it a try right then. Now, this is not a light fluffy cake. No, this cake is a dense, moist, dark chocolate cake. My only change to the recipe was to add chocolate chips, and to dust the top of the cake with confectioners sugar. I'll do the same again. I personally could not detect any coffee flavor, but it was still very good.
 Son Number 1 stopped by, ate 2 pieces of cake, and proclaimed it "awesome". So I will make it again. It is easy and has great flavor. Here's the recipe.

Coffee-Cocoa Snack Cake

slightly adapted from Fine Cooking

10 tablespoons very soft butter ( 5 ounces)

1- 2/3 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons unbleached, all purpose flour;  7-1/4 ounces

1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa together- 2-1/2 ounce (not dutch-processed)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 -1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1-1/2 cups brewed coffee- cooled to warm

confectioners sugar for dusting

Place rack in center of oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

Grease and flour a 9x9 inch square baking pan. If you are going to remove the cake from the pan, then line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and grease and flour it.

Do not use a mixer for this cake, except to cream the butter and sugar together, if desired. I just mixed it all by hand. Easy!

Mix softened butter and sugar in a bowl and cream until smooth. Blend in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in vanilla. Sift the dry ingredients together and pour into the batter. Add the coffee and whisk the ingredients until mixture is smooth and mostly free of lumps.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool before serving.

If you used parchment paper and are going to remove the cake from the

pan, let the cake sit for 20 minutes before inverting onto another rack.

I left my cake in the pan to cool.

This cake is a bit crumbly in texture. It can be wrapped in plastic and stored at room temperature for up to 5 days.