Today is National Chocolate Cake Day! What better excuse than to make one, right?! Who doesn’t love a good chocolate cake. Growing up, chocolate cake was pretty much my favorite dessert… well, chocolate anything really! The earliest chocolate cake recipe was published in 1847 by Philadelphian cookbook author Eliza Leslie. It differed slightly than today’s average chocolate cakes, but the sentiment remains the same.

A couple years ago, the Mr’s sweet Nana sent me a copy of her church‘s bicentennial cookbook. I love church cookbooks! They’re a wealth of historical home-town, home-grown culinary knowledge passed down and developed over years of trial-and-error by home cooks like me. I enjoy cooking/baking, cooking/baking for others, and writing about my creations; but I don’t think I ever aspire to be more than a great home cook myself, through trial-and-error.

I was inspired by National Chocolate Cake Day to try this unusual recipe for chocolate cake from the book and it gave me an opportunity to use my new Nordic Ware 12in ProForm Bundt Pan with Handles. This recipe was unusual for a couple of reasons, but the main reason was that the first ingredient is yellow cake mix! The Mr looooves yellow cake. The first thing he said when he walked through the door was, “Wow! It smells amazing in here! It smells like my favorite thing ever!” Joke was on him for about half a second, but he was really excited nonetheless. He ate a second piece after dinner when I joked about off-loading the rest of the cake at church the next morning.

I had to cook it 5min longer than called for (could just be an issue with my oven, but it came out spongy and moist (probably due to the inclusion of the pudding mix). The chocolate chips peppered throughout lent deep pops of melty chocolate with each bite. I would describe the cake itself as a light/milk chocolate cake, but honestly it’s probably one of the best chocolate cakes I’ve ever made. I bet it would be equally as good made with chocolate cake mix, or by making it a yellow chocolate chip cake by swapping out the chocolate pudding for vanilla or caramel pudding.

This cake elicited some serious drool during baking. It smelled so good I could almost taste it! One day someone is going to invent a way for me to scent my blog posts so you get a little taste of what I’ve got going on here. Yum! You just can’t beat a good, old-fashioned church-lady recipe I guess.

What’s one of the best “borrowed” recipes you’ve ever made?