Chocolate Strawberry Cake (gluten Free)

I love this cake. It came from frankenstiening together a few things that I love. Mostly just chocolate and strawberries, that, and my absolute favourite brownie recipe. I use the recipe for the brownie layer in this cake for so many things. It is gluten free, but I use it no matter who I am cooking for ( celiac or not ) and it is always a hit. It is diverse and a delicious accompaniment to many treats.

the ingredients you will need are:

- stabilized whipped cream ( see my other instructable )

Chocolate strawberries :

- strawberries

- Chocolate for dipping

- white chocolate

Brownies :

- 1 cup white sugar

- 1 cup brown sugar

- 3/4 cup oil

- 1 1/2 cups cocoa

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 2 tsp instant coffee dissolved in 1 tbsp water

I chose the biggest and nicest looking berries to be the ones to chocolate dip for the cake. The rest won't be going to waste, they will end up inside the two brownie layers. You can dip your berries in any chocolate you want, it will all taste amazing I'm sure. Since this was a special cake I was making for a special someone I decided to go all out and get some nice Belgian chocolate for dipping. I melted together with equal parts milk and bittersweet chocolate. I microwaved it in a bowl in 30 second intervals until smooth, be careful you don't burn your chocolate as there is no saving it once that happens. Dip the strawberries and then rest them on a piece of parchment until they harden. I ended up just using white candy melts that I already had for the white drizzle. To melt these and be able to use them easily I put the melts in a ziploc bag. I used hot water from the kettle in a mug and submerged my bag of chocolate. This melts the chocolate inside the bag making it easier to work with. Once the chocolate melted I cut the tip off the bag and drizzled it back and forth across the berries.

The brownies are a very simple step in this dessert, as i the rest of this instructable. First, mix both sugars, cocoa and salt in a large mixing bowl. Once well combined add your eggs, coffee, vanilla and oil. Mix all of this until just combined. Don't over mix your batter, we want it to be nice and dense. I split my batter in half between two 8 inch spring form pans and baked at 350 for about 25 minutes.

Put one of the brownie rounds on whatever dish you plan to serve this on. I used one that i broke putting onto the cooling rack as the base. Put down an even layer of cut up strawberries, then top that with your stabilized whipped cream. Next, put on your other brownie round. There really isn't much method the decorating this cake. I piled on the chocolate covered strawberries and used a piping bag for the whipped cream. This cake has such a nice contrast between the rich dense chocolate, light fluffy whipped cream and juicy refreshing berries! Enjoy :)