Realize you forgot your housemate's birthday until about noon. Dash off to the store to buy a devil's food cake mix and 1 pkg of instant pudding. Pick up some odds and ends that you needed off of your grocery list so you don't waste the trip.
Come home, put most of the groceries away and preheat oven to 350 degrees
Spray the 9x13 inch pan that you should have somewhere with your pots and pans
dust it with powdered cocoa. Smile smugly at yourself and preen about what a great idea that was.
Look at the amounts off stuff you need to add on the box. Probably a few eggs, some oil and some water. Measure them all out first. Ignore the instructions on the box of pudding.
1. Put water in blender
3. Put Oil or Applesauce in blender
4 Put eggs in blender (crack the eggs from their shell first)
5. Put mixes in the blender
Blend for 15 to 30 pulses. Pour into the cake pan
Put pan into the oven. Set your timer for 35 minutes, or your cellphone alarm
Half way through cooking,start on your mock ganache (borrowed from HillbillyHousewife.com with Mock Improvements)
* 1 cup sugar (I use raw organic cause you know, I am pretending to be healthy)
* 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa (I like the stuff from aldi. Not a fan of hershey, but it's your cake so whatever you want)
* 1/4 cup cornstarch (you did remember to buy some when you were out? Right? Crap, I forgot to remind you)
* 1/4 teaspoon salt (I use kosher cause I have a ton of it, and it works for us but you can use whatever)
* 1 cup tap water ( EW GROSS! I use the filtered water that I am rotating out of my storage)
* 1/4 cup (1/2 a stick) of margarine or butter (I use imperial cuz it's cheap, it's even called OLEO at the store)
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I am going to start making this from rum and vanilla pods, but for now just regular old pure vanilla extract, not that imitation crap but if that's all you have... eh use it)
Get out a two quart sized saucepan and curse because you thought you were going to be getting RID of all that teflon crap. Curse again because it has scratches in it. Give up and use it anyway. In it, dump in the cup of sugar, look for your lousy 1/2 cup that you KNOW YOU PUT IN THE UTENSIL DRAWER... oh, there is is in the drainer. Then mix in the cocoa, and then the cornstarch and salt. Make it all homogenized and crap. When it looks all nice and mixed up very SLOWLY while using your whisk (PLASTIC RIGHT? PLEASE) incorporate the water that you have in a nice measuring cup for liquid.
Turn the heat on medium and then turn it up a bit higher and curse that you thought you were doing it right before when it doesn't start boiling. Panic when it boils and turn it down to middle again. You don't have to keep a REALLY close eye on it, but make sure it isn't sticking to the bottom of the pan because that's a pain in the butt. When it starts to boil, PANIC and then gather your wits. At that point you NEED to stir it constantly so it won't scorch and stink up the kitchen and ruin perfectly good chocolate by mock welding it to the bottom. Boil it for a full minute. I count to 40 and then speed up to get to 60 when it starts looking like fudge... sorta.
Remove it from the heat quickly and then plop in the margarine that you forgot to soften and stir it up until the chunk melts and then stir in the vanilla. At that point your cake should be done. When the cake timer dings, search frantically for your potholders and open up the oven door, trying not to burn your self and yell, "HOT HOT!!" so the toddler understands not to come in though the babygated kitchen. While it is still hot pour the deliciously viscous liquid all over the cake that you placed on the counter, forgetting a hot pad and muttering under your breath.
Grab a rubber spatula and spread it smooth. Try to let it to cool slightly before slicing and eating. If you left some of the oooey gooey chocolate on the spatula and in the pan you can lick that and share it with the kids to distract them. If you managed to wait until it cooled down the chocolate will be glossy and have thickened up nicely.
Slice that bad boy into slightly larger than individual slices and put into bowls for the kids, and pretend you are civilized enough to eat it on a plate.
Try to remember to take pics before it is gone. Fail..
Accept all the gratitude from your offspring and housemate as to how AWESOMELY delicious the cake is, and then leave the few dishes for your housemate or husband to do, or do them later.... grumbling under your breath at the ingrates who live in your house and eat YOUR food and can't even do a sink of freaking dishes after you slaved over a hot stove all day for them! Put away the rest of the groceries.
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