Amazingly Easy, Amazingly Delish - Choc Cake!

Hi, friends! I know, this is a lot of recipe posts in a row, but we've had the opportunity to have some awesome friends over lately and with good company coming over comes trying to make good food! Are you familiar with Sandra Lee's Semi-homemade series? I feel like if she hadn't thought of the whole "semi-homemade" idea first, then I probably would have! It's genius. I found a recipe online (allrecipes) for a chocolate cake that I thought would be fun to try and everyone loved it! It was the easiest thing to make (uses a cake mix for the base) and really was SO rich and moist and even has tiny chocolate chips melted throughout - the perfect cake for a chocolate lover. I actually don't even like chocolate cake (i'm definitely a vanilla girl, ie. funfetti cake), but I know a lot of people LOVE chocolate cake, and I also had the smart plan to make something that if we had a lot of leftovers then it wouldn't be so tempting to eat them. My husband is already devouring the rest! The recipe is below; I decided to make it into two cakes and added the fresh strawberries and used a buttercream frosting that I bought from the store. I made this late Tuesday night, so I didn't have the energy to make something completely from scratch, hence why it is so easy! I hope you can make it! The compliments I got from it made me feel like a little Martha Stewart! I kept saying, "No really, it only looks semi-impressive, it's SO easy to make!"

Lots'O'Chocolate Cake

1 (18.25 oz) package devil's food cake mix

1 (5.9 oz) package instant chocolate pudding mix

1 cup sour cream

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

1/2 cup warm water

2 cups mini semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. In a large bowl, mix together the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, eggs and water. Stir in the chocolate chips and pour batter into a well greased bundt pan (or two 8" cake pans).

3. Bake for 50-55 minutes, or until top is springy to the touch and wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cook cake thoroughly in pan at least an hour and a half before transferring to a plate and icing. I used buttercream frosting (really, ANY frosting would be good) and cut up fresh strawberries to put between the layers and on top. Another recommendation is to dust the cake with powdered sugar and drizzle some chocolate syrup on top. YUM-O!

That's it! Oh, and I didn't have nearly as much trouble icing this cake as I did the carrot cake. Praise the Lord! So, it is Thursday! Hallelujah! Since I have off on Fridays, it is always SO nice when Thursdays roll around. I know my blogging has been down to about two posts/week, but it really is just so chaotic around here. My days at work have been filled to the brim with projects of my own plus projects that I'm helping others with. We just launched a new Spring line at work and we are SO busy getting it out the door. By the way, I'm in Marketing! Have I ever mentioned that? I loveee Marketing. Creativity is something I thrive off of and it is such a blessing to do it in my line of work. Do you enjoy your job? I wish everyone could enjoy what they do. I love this but I am also really looking forward to being a stay-at-home mom some day. I think that will be the most rewarding job yet. Hard, but rewarding. Alright, better get back to work. Please enjoy your day and have an amazing weekend!

Blessings,