Chocolate Overload

This post is for all the times I've been told that since I'm a dietitians I don't eat dessert or chocolate. No and No. Actually, dietitians have an obsession and love for food and dessert is the cherry on top of it all. When your job is centered around nutrition you are inevitably forced to think about food all day. My love for food makes me wonder what I'm going to eat for dinner while I'm eating lunch. I'm constantly excited to cook something new, eat something different or decide my next recipe to try.

My chocolate overload and new obsession with cake began the weekend of my father in law, Scott's birthday. Since I love to cook and my husband and I love to host we decided to treat them to a homemade dinner at our house instead of going out. We started with grilled vegetables. This time it was a medley of red peppers, onions, eggplant, zucchini and mushrooms with parsley, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a dash of salt and pepper. This was accompanied with dry rubbed ribs, my moms brown rice pilaf and a healthier version of my friend Erin's corn bread casserole. Dinner was delicious but I think we'd agree that the most exciting part of the meal hadn't been tasted yet.

 

I love baking for Scott because he has a sweet tooth just like me. When it comes to dessert the richer the better! Knowing that Smitten Kitchen is always a great source for recipes I filtered through her cake options until I found the perfect choice, a chocolate sour cream cake with peanut butter cream cheese frosting. Mmm...just reading it makes me want to bake it again. You may be wondering why I'm sharing a cake recipe or you may think the reason I'm writing this post was because it was a lower fat version of cake. Was it low fat? No (although I did make a few changes to make it healthier). Was it AMAZING? That one gets a unanimous yes (even from my husband who rarely wants dessert). The reason I wanted to share this was to further prove "Everything in Moderation" even delicious chocolate cake. It was designed to be a three layer cake but since it was just my husband, mom and Ryan's parents we only made two layers. My mom and I did the cake in the morning and then layered it with the peanut butter cream cheese frosting before dinner. Then, as if that wasn't enough we topped it with a chocolate peanut butter glaze. It was decadent: moist, rich and creamy all in one bite. The perfect mix of peanut butter and chocolate. Although mine didn't turn out nearly as pretty as hers I was very proud of the outcome. For those of you who haven't been to the Smitten Kitchen blog I recommend checking it out now or clicking on the recipe link below. You won't be disappointed.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

Recipe from www.SmittenKitchen.com 

Adjustments I made: In place of regular ingredients I used a light sour cream, 1/3 less fat cream cheese and reduced fat peanut butter

         

My amazing Teskey family

If you don't have 3 circle cake pans you can also make it in a 9 x 11 cake pan (which I did the weekend after for my friends fiancee's birthday. Make the full recipe, pour it in the 9 x 11 pan and bake it for 45 minutes. FYI: since it's in a 9 x11 pan without layers you won't need as much of the frosting.