Rosemary Olive Oil Chocolate Chunk Cake

I have been totally stoked to make and post this recipe. Rosemary is probably my all-time favorite herb and chocolate is probably my all-time favorite thing about life, soooo.... why not put them together in a cake?

I found the original recipe at 101 Cookbooks dot com, a really wonderful food blog written by a really cool girl that I'm jealous of because she travels everywhere and is pretty and knows all these big, smart-sounding food terms and has like 375,000 subscribers to her blog, literally. I came across her blog while searching for a black bean brownie recipe, and I totally fell in love. I subscribe by email to 3 blogs, and her's is one.

So... you should really go check her out. Her photo composition is gorgeous and her recipes are amazing.

Providence was on my side when it came to making this cake. It just so happened that John had purchased myriad dark chocolate bars from different countries at Walmart the week before...

...and as far as the rosemary was concerned, after calling all over town, I found someone who grew it. I know I had some last summer, but the pot it was in was moved before the frost came, and I couldn't find it when I needed it. Thanks Ken and Lauretta!

To make Heidi's cake, I altered the recipe a little. She called for spelt flour, which I've never heard of, and I am sure the people at the local Mexican market have never heard of it either, so I used whole wheat flour...

....I also added a ganache-style chocolate frosting to make it a little more "dessert-y", also made with the dark chocolate John had brought down...

And to add to all this, I doubled the recipe and made one a healthier, whole foods version, substituting all of the white flour with whole wheat flour (which I ground myself in my handy-dandy Golden Grain Grinder, by the way), and using honey as the sweetener. There were a few other minor changes I made as well. If you'd like to see that recipe, just go to my Whole Food Kids blog.

This cake was moist and had a wonderful, unique taste. It tasted, I guess I could say, "classy" for lack of a better word. The rosemary added a surprise in the flavor and the chocolate chunks of different sizes were so good...

(shown above before frosting)

This is something I would love to make for a lady luncheon, and plan to. Hope you love it, too...

Ingredients

For the cake:
* ¾ cup whole wheat flour
* 1 ½ cups white flour
* ¾ cup sugar
* 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
* ¾ teaspoon sea salt
* 3 eggs
* 1 cup olive oil
* ¾ cup whole milk
* 1 ½ tablespoons fresh rosemary, finely chopped
* 5 ounces chocolate (70% cacao), chopped into ½-inch pieces
For the frosting:
* 1 ½ cups chocolate chunks (70% cacoa)
* ¼ cup butter

Directions

1. In a blender, process oil and rosemary until smooth.

1. Combine the dry ingredients.

2. Combine the wet ingredients, including rosemary olive oil.

3. Combine these two mixes until barely moistened, then stir in chocolate chunks.

4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 to 40 minutes, depending on your pan size. I used an 8×11 and baked it for about 35 minutes.

5. For the frosting, slowly melt butter and chocolate together, then spread on cake once it has cooled.

Direct recipe link: http://keyingredient.com/recipes/321499/