Does chocolate cake sound good to anyone else right about now?

This coming Sunday, May 19, is National Devil’s Food Cake Day and I’m pretty much sold on the idea, truth be told. Might have to squeeze in some baking between appointments on Saturday.

What makes Devil’s Food cake different from other chocolate cakes? Good question! Generally speaking (i.e., according to Wikipedia), Devil’s Food cake usually contains coffee and usually uses cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate for the primary flavoring agent.

Of course it would have been super simple to construct a cake-sweet cocktail for today with chocolate vodka, chocolate syrup, some Kahlua and maybe some milk to tie it all together, but we’ve been down that road and that cocktail–while tasty!–has been done to death. Instead, let’s take a different path today. A more feisty path.

Does madness follow down this road? Maybe so, but it’s tasty madness.

Cocoa Diablo

2 oz strongly-brewed Coffee (preferably chilled)
1 1/2 oz Dark Chocolate Vodka (like Van Gogh)
1/2 oz Absolut Pepar
pinch of Spicy Rim Blend

Spicy Rim Blend: 1 part red chili powder, 2 parts powdered ginger, 4 parts cocoa powder

Run a wedge of lemon or lime around the outer edge of a cocktail glass then drag the rim of the glass through the Spicy Rim Blend. If you’re unsure of your guests’ heat tolerance, only rim one half of the glass.

Combine the cocktail ingredients over ice in the bottom of a shaker and shake like Mephistopheles, himself, is on your tail. Strain into the prepared cocktail glass and sip with caution.

If you make this with warm or hot coffee, you will end up with more water in the mix–this may or may not be a good thing to your thinking. Proceed accordingly. This looks like your average chocolate martini (sans milk, obviously) with a cocoa powder rim. Looks can be deceiving. Fact is, this is a more-spicy-than-sweet chocolate cocktail that lives up to it’s name. It’s not a relaxing cocktail to wind down a dinner with, more of a get the party started tipple.. And, yes, it might be useful if you feel like daring a friend to try something shocking.

Cheers!