Mexican Chocolate Cake

This Mexican Chocolate Cake is faintly spiced with cinnamon and cayenne pepper, reminding you of the flavors of Mexican hot chocolate. 

This cake is frosted with a mixture of melted chocolate chips and heavy cream that you spice with cinnamon, cayenne, and coffee liqueur or extract, and then you whip in a stand mixer until thick. 

The cake itself is super moist and decadent. I purposely slightly under baked it so that the center would be almost gooey and the cake would stay moist. 

I'm a big fan of the flavors of Mexican hot chocolate and have incorporated them into cookies and even ice cream. This cake and the frosting incorporate the flavors beautifully. 

The frosting for this cake is referred to as a ganache (a mixture of heavy cream and chocolate), but it is not a typical ganache that must be poured immediately after the chocolate melts lest it it solidify too soon. 

When you first pour the hot cream over the chocolate chips and realize that the mixture is pretty thin, ganache will not come to mind. However, once you whip everything in your stand mixer with the whisk attachment, and you get a thick and tasty frosting, you will breathe a sigh of relief. 

In fact, you will probably sneak more tastes than you need to because it's so chocolate-y and delicious. 

I made this cake for my daughter's birthday. When you have a birthday that is so close to Christmas, it's always nice when you get to celebrate it with something that is not Christmas themed. 

You can frost this cake fully, covering all of the cake, or you can do the "almost naked" look, where some of the cake shows through on the sides. If you go "almost naked," you can add the rest of the frosting to the middle and top of the cake. 

To make this cake, the only special equipment you will need are two six inch cake pans. 

That's assuming you have either a hand held or stand mixer (the stand mixer is super handy for making the frosting because it takes a few minutes). 

This cake is super easy to make. Plus, it's little, just enough to serve eight without any leftovers. It makes a wonderful birthday or celebration cake. 

Welcome to this month's Cake Slice Bakers! 

Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it has been Little Everyday Cakes by Candace Floyd. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!

Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.

The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book.

This is our last cake from Little Everyday Cakes - and traditionally our last bake for the year is free choice, and our choices for December 2021 were ~

• Gingerbread Cake from My Recipe Reviews
• Kahlua Cake from Making Miracles
• Lemon Cornmeal Cake from Amandie Bakes
• Lemon-Sour Cream Pound Cake from  All That's Left Are The Crumbs 
• Mexican Chocolate Cake from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Rum Cake from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Strawberry Cake from A Little Bit of All Right
• Tea Cakes from Camille Cooks