Super Easy Chocolate Cake

It had been rainy and windy for a couple of days so hot soup sounded good and I had a head of cabbage in the crisper. Decided to invite Hannah and Francisco over to share cabbage soup with us and then thought "I should make some dessert!" Now the  ingredients I have in the cupboard are quite limited compared to what I am used to so choices of what could be made were few. BigJohn and I came to Costa Rica with only a couple of suitcases. No way were cookbooks going to fit in there! So glad to have the internet! And even happier when it is working!

A quick search turned up this recipe for Easy Chocolate Cake. And I had almost everything listed as ingredients. But no mixer! (And once again, I feel like such a spoiled American when I say that! And when I say "American" I mean people from middle class USA. Because Costa Ricans are also Americans! And everybody else on the continents of North and South America.)

After thinking about the time I'd spent hand-whipping that whipped cream for the Banana Cream Pie (torture) I decided the cake batter would mix up fine in the blender. This was a first for me.

 As usual, if Mia and Malak are over, they are my special kitchen helpers and watch every move I make. You can guess how much Hector likes this.

 Oh time out! Must take a step outside and look at this huge moth that has been attracted to our lights shining through the window! (We do this a lot. Go out to look at the bugs. And sometimes we are really lucky and they are right in the house like on the wall next to the bed and we don't even need to step outside. Did I tell you about the time I found a cockroach under my pillow?)

 A search of the cupboards turned up no cake pan. Guess what? Recognize this frying pan below? Yes! It's also my pie plate but works for cakes too! The recipe made enough for one layer. And yes, those are my fingerprints you can see where I was testing to see if the cake was done. Settled for the toothpick test just to make sure. Didn't have what I needed to make frosting although I think I could have made powdered sugar using regular sugar in the blender but will experiment with that another time. So no frosting but then came the bright idea to put a piece of chocolate covered caramel in each piece while the cake was baking. I'm so brilliant!

 See that melted caramel! It might not look that great but it really was good!

 See how happy BigJohn looks?