Chocolate Lasagna

Total Time: 1 hr 5 mins Preparation Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 45 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 12
• 1 (18 1/4 ounce) box devil's food cake mix
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1/3 cup oil
• 3 eggs
• buttercream frosting
• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened (3 sticks)
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chilled

Recipe

• 1 make the cake in a 13x9-inch baking pan following instructions on the box of cake mix (preheat oven to 350 degrees; mix cake mix, water, oil, and eggs together in a large bowl; pour batter into pan greased generously with shortening.).
• 2 allow the cake to cool completely.
• 3 when cake is cool, make buttercream frosting by first whipping the soft butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high speed.
• 4 add two cups of the powdered sugar, mix well, then add remaining powdered sugar.
• 5 add 1/4 cup of whole milk and vanilla, then mix on high speed for 2 minutes or until frosting is smooth and creamy.
• 6 turn cake out of the pan onto wax paper.
• 7 using both hands, carefully flip the cake over, so that it's right-side-up, onto another strip of wax paper.
• 8 now you're going to cut through the cake twice, creating three layers.
• 9 we'll start at the bottom slice.
• 10 first slide the cake over to the edge of your kitchen counter.
• 11 this way you can drop your hand with the knife down below the counter at the edge to get a nice, straight cut through the cake.
• 12 using a long bread knife or other long serrated knife, cut through the bottom third of the cake.
• 13 spin the cake and wax paper so that you can cut through all sides (your knife probably won't get all the way through to the other side).
• 14 when the cake is sliced, carefully flip the top section over onto the other sheet of wax paper.
• 15 frost the bottom layer of cake with approximately 1/3 of the buttercream frosting.
• 16 break the chilled semi-sweet chocolate into little bits that are a tad smaller than chocolate chips.
• 17 a good way to do this is to put the chilled chocolate into a large zip-top bag, then use the handle of a butter knife to smash the unsuspecting chocolate into pieces.
• 18 sprinkle about 1/3 of the chocolate bits over the frosting on the bottom layer.
• 19 turn the top section back over onto the bottom layer.
• 20 again, slice through the top section creating the final two layers.
• 21 carefully flip the top over onto the wax paper, and frost the new layer as you did with the first layer, adding chocolate bits as well.
• 22 you may, at this point, wish to slice the top into thirds across the width of the cake.
• 23 this makes flipping over the top layer much easier.
• 24 it's also how you're going to slice the cake later, so you'll never see the cuts.
• 25 any cracks or breaks are no big deal since you'll just cover up the goofs with frosting.
• 26 carefully reassemble the top section on the rest of the cake.
• 27 if you have a large bulge in the center of the cake, you may wish to slice that off so that the cake is flatter on top.
• 28 throw that slice away.
• 29 frost the top of the cake with the remaining frosting, then sprinkle on the remaining chocolate bits.
• 30 the cake is served as triangular slices.
• 31 so, slice it up by first cutting through the middle of the cake, lengthwise.
• 32 next cut across the cake through the middle (widthwise) twice.
• 33 now you have six slices that just need to be cut from corner to corner one time each, creating 12 triangular slices.
• 34 chill any cake you don't eat that day.