Recipe - Great Chocolate Cake And Strawberry Shortcake

BASIC CAKE
1 cup Ghirardelli Unsweetened
Cocoa
2 cup Boiling water
1 cup Melted butter
2 One half cup Sugar
4 Eggs
2 teaspoon Vanilla
2 1/3 cup Unsifted cake flour
2 teaspoon Baking soda
One half teaspoon Baking powder
One half teaspoon Salt
Additional for Great
Strawberry Chocolate

SHORTCAKE
1 cup Heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoon Powdered sugar
One half teaspoon Vanilla
Strawberries
2 ounce Ghirardelli SemiSweet
Chocolate

DIRECTIONS: Mix cocoa with boiling water, stirring with wire whip until
smooth. Cool in refrigerator while preparing other ingredients. In large
mixer bowl, beat butter with sugar, eggs, and vanilla on high speed 5
minutes. Sift flour with baking soda, baking powder and salt. On low speed,
add dry ingredients alternately with cocoa and liquid, starting and ending
with flour. (Do not overbeat.) Divide batter into 2 round pans (9 x 1 1/2")
lined with buttered waxed paper. Bake at 350F for 30 to 35 minutes or
until cake tests dry with a toothpick. Cool in pans for 10 minutes; remove
cake and cool on racks. Use 1 layer of cake for Great Strawberry Chocolate
Shortcake dessert. The second layer may be frozen for other great chocolate
desserts or the 2 layers may be frosted together.

For shortcake: Whip cream with powdered sugar and vanilla. Spread over top
of 1 layer of cake. Arrange fresh strawberries on top. Melt chocolate and
drizzle over berries. Chill to firm chocolate. Makes 8 servings.

Source: Recipes from Ghirardelli Chocolate Company of San Francisco

From: Sallie Austin

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini