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<\/a>Part of the dessert buffet, with Karen Salkin’s Chocolate Chip Christmas Cake on the right. Photo by Karen Salkin, as is the big one at the top of this page.<\/p><\/div>\n
Being that this is holiday time, I decided to go with making it colorful, but not in either a predictable or difficult-to-bake way.<\/p>\n
So, I thought of what I already had on hand, and came up with this luscious, merry, and fun holiday cake. (At the end, I\u2019ll tell you how you can adapt it to a few other<\/em> important occasions.)<\/p>\n The finished product. Photo by Karen Salkin.<\/p><\/div>\n The frosting was almost a disaster, so I\u2019m especially proud of myself for not only coming up with my own icing recipe, but for not panicking and getting it done with just a few minutes to spare before we had to leave! (I\u2019ll explain that<\/em> disaster after the main recipe for it!)<\/p>\n So here it is, my lovelies\u2014the best Christmas Cake ever!!! [Note: I know the directions sound lengthy, because I have to tell stories about many of the steps, but I promise you, it does not take long to make at all!]<\/p>\n CHOCOLATE CHIP CHRISTMAS CAKE<\/strong><\/p>\n INGREDIENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n FOR THE ACTUAL CAKE<\/strong><\/p>\n Light color boxed cake mix–white<\/em> looks best, but yellow will substitute in a pinch.<\/p>\n One 10 oz. bag of holiday chocolate chips\u2014the bag usually contains red, green, and brown chips, and we use them all.<\/p>\n FOR THE FROSTING<\/strong><\/p>\n Cream cheese frosting is best here, but you can use any white frosting that you like. Store-bought works fine, but what I did takes a whole story to tell. (If you don\u2019t have time to read it, just go with the one in the can.)<\/p>\n DIRECTIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n Prepare the cake mix as directed on the box, reserving a tiny bit of the dry mix itself for the next step. (If you forget, and make it all wet before remembering, just use flour for that situation.)<\/p>\n This part is very important, to keep the chocolate chips from sinking into the cake batter, which not only ruins the look and taste of the cake, but makes a mess at the bottom of the pans! Put the chips (not the entire bag, but a nice portion of it) in a separate bowl, and toss them with a bit of the actual cake flour from the mix, before you use them. (That\u2019s what you can use separate flour for, if need be.)<\/p>\n The two just-baked layers. Photo by Karen Salkin.<\/p><\/div>\n Pour the wet batter into the two well-greased pans. After the batter is in the pans, sprinkle the newly-floured chocolate chips on top, and then with a butter knife, gently swirl them in, to just below the surface. I promise you, these two tips make the cake perfect!<\/p>\n My<\/em> cake box said to make it in two 9\u201d round cake pans, but since I didn\u2019t have those, I went to a \u201cBaking Pan Conversion Chart.\u201d You can find those all over the internet. But I still didn\u2019t really have what they called for. So, I used two little bit different sized rectangle pans, and it still turned-out gorgeous.<\/p>\n My mix made two flat-ish layers, which was fine. I liked having two layers because\u2014more frosting, of course!<\/p>\n Wait until the cakes are totally\u2014and I do mean totally<\/em>\u2014cooled before frosting.<\/p>\n FROSTING STORY<\/strong><\/p>\n So here\u2019s the Frosting Story, including my own recipe for it, borne out of desperation:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>