Party night!

Tonight is the night I celebrate my sobriety anniversary with my home group. I made my own cake this year - it's what I wanted, and yeah, I like my version best. The cake recipe comes right off the back of the box of Hershey's baking cocoa. I used the butter cream frosting recipe, too, only instead of milk, I added come coffee sludge to make it mocha.

What is coffee sludge, you say? Well, coffee sludge is what happens when you can't seem to find the jar of instant decaf coffee reserved for just these occasions, but you do find an old jar of regular instant that is from Hy-Vee.

Now, some of you will know that Hy-Vee is a midwestern grocery store chain. That means this particular jar of instant coffee moved with us back from Minnesota.

In 2004.

That could be why is was a solid block of almost-black nastiness rattling around in the otherwise empty plastic jar.

It was this morning that I was making the frosting, and I had just poured my first cup of the day when I got the idea that adding hot, fresh coffee to that freeze-dried ball of what looked like shit might give me something pretty strong with which to make a killer mocha frosting. [Note to self: do not try to think before drinking that first cup.] I poured some of the fresh coffee into the little jar and swirled it around. The one lump broke apart and a couple of the larger chunks dissolved quickly. I poured off 1 cup of the stuff to use in the frosting. It was thicker than any espresso I have ever made. I did not taste it, but it looked, well, chewy. I was glad I used a glass measuring cup - that shit would have dissolved metal and melted plastic.

The frosting is incredible. I don't think I have ever made frosting that I could describe as "having teeth" but this stuff does. Oh man.

I think I might use a combination of instant and real again another time, but I will be measuring the instant into the real stuff instead. It was almost too strong.

So, the recipe for my killer mocha frosting is:

2 sticks butter, softened (this is a double batch)
1 1/3 cup baking cocoa
6 cups confectioner's sugar
1 cup coffee sludge

Beat the butter to smooth it out and add the cocoa.

Beat gently (it'll poof all over the place if you go to fast!) until the cocoa and butter are good friends.

Add the 10X and beat gently again. It will look sort of loose and crumbly. Now add the coffee sludge and beat until it is all incorporated and looks like frosting instead of something unpleasant.

Frost the cake. I made a half-sheet cake, plus six cupcakes and I still had about a cup of frosting left over. God only knows what I'll use it for, but I've got it.