When Chocolate Meets Cheese

Thinking about chocolate so early in the morning is okay. Just thinking about it will not add any calorie to your body. But thinking about chocolate this early, and at the same time you have two plates full of chocolate cake hiding in the fridge...Well, it's going to be heck of a hard time restraining yourself.  

I am so aware of these chocolate slices that I've carefully wrapped before storing them in the fridge that I practically have sit on my hands so not to get to the kitchen and have one slice right now! *Okay, that was bull! ^_^* Yeah, yeah... It's not exactly healthy to have desserts as breakfast, but these decadent sweet treats are exceptional. Trust me. You wouldn't mind sneaking a slice or two and still want more. *It's THAT addictive!*

The cake was so perfectly moist, chocolatey and very, very rich. It was so darn good that I'm in fact, have eaten about five slices of them! I believe even one slice of the cake have at least thousands of calories. If you give no biggie about the calorie stuffs, you are in the right track. Take a deep breath, and eat to you hearts content! ;-)

Black Bottom Sheet Cake

Adapted from Allrecipes

For cream cheese topping:

• 1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, egg, white sugar and salt until light and fluffy. Then add the miniature chocolate chips. I've made this before and this filling is a bit too much for my liking as it overpowering the cake. So I've halved the recipe this time and add 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

For the cake:

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 Tbsp cider vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 175 C (350 F). Grease a 14" x 14" square baking pan and lined with parchment paper. Set aside. The cake will be very thin, about 1/2 cm thick since it doesn't rise so much. If you want the cake to be thicker, you can use a smaller pan or double up the cake recipe.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Make a hole in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the water, vegetable oil, vinegar and vanilla extract
3. Stir until well blended, then pour into the prepared pan. Drizzled the cream cheese topping onto the cake batter with a spoon. Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes. Let cool in the pan before slicing it into squares. Store leftovers wrapped with cling plastic in the refrigerator. I think it tastes better overnight!

I've made a few changes in the recipe after reading the suggestions at the recipe's site. For start, I upped the cocoa powder to 1/3 cup for more flavor. And I replaced the water with strong black coffee. It does enhanced the chocolate flavor. Plus, I used 1 Tbsp of vanilla extract for a good measure. No holding back! ^_^ 

The I-Can't-Stop-Eating-After-One-Bite slice!