Make sure to check out the accompanying Argus Video to see how to make this cake.

This is a cake for those times when you are assigned to bring something sweet to a potluck, but you forget until an hour before.

Or when people are over hanging out at your house and you desperately need something to feed them.

Or when you forgot that today is your best friend’s birthday. Ooops.

I originally found this recipe in the New York Times Magazine under the name of Chocolate Dump-It Cake. The author christened it as a “Dump-It” cake because making it doesn’t require separating eggs, sifting flour or any extraordinary ingredients. Just dump the ingredients into a pot, then dump the batter into a cake pan, bake and go.

It won’t take you much longer than it would to put together a cake from a box mix. But you’ll get a much more satisfying result. You’ll end up with a cake that is moist and chocolate-y but doesn’t have that fake, cake from a box, gritty, too much sugar taste.

The recipe is great for college students (or anyone with limited access to cooking equipment) because it doesn’t require creaming butter and sugar together. Without a hand mixer or a stand mixer it can be hard to reach that “light and fluffy” stage without wearing your arm out first.

This cake also doesn’t mess around with wimpy cocoa powder. There’s whole chocolate in both the cake and the frosting. I’ve decreased the amount of sugar from the original recipe, which really lets the chocolate flavor shine through.

For the icing on the cake – literally – you melt semisweet chocolate chips (the same kind you would use to make a classic chocolate chip cookies) and softly swirl them together with sour cream. You don’t have to mess with the eggs of a traditional meringue frosting or the whipping that comes along with making a butter cream frosting.  The semi-sweet chocolate tempers the richness of the dark cake.

I like using a bundt pan or a tube pan to make this cake because it gives it that old-fashioned feeling. Check your local Goodwill or thrift store for these pans and take home a castaway from a kitchen. If you don’t have one of these pans, two 9-inch round cake pans will do just fine.

If you have time, I recommend chilling the cake. It’s great warm, but something about cold cake and cold milk really does the trick.

Get serious and upgrade your cake.

Chocolate OH NO! Cake
Adapted from Amanda Hesser’s Dump-It Cake recipe

Serves Ten

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/4 pound unsalted butter (1 stick), plus more for greasing the pan
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups sour cream, at room temperature

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and pull sour cream out fridge to come to room temperature.

2. In a 2- to 3-quart pot, mix together the sugar, unsweetened chocolate, butter and 1 cup of water. Place over medium heat and stir occasionally until all of the ingredients are melted and blended. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly, 10 to 15 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, stir together the milk and vinegar. Grease and flour a 9-inch tube or bundt pan.

4. When the chocolate in the pot has cooled a bit, whisk in the milk mixture and eggs. In several additions, and without over mixing, whisk in the dry ingredients. When the mixture is smooth, add the vanilla extract and whisk once or twice to blend. Pour the batter into pan and bake on the middle rack until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 to 35 minutes. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and cool on a rack. Let cool completely.

5. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler, then let cool to room temperature. Stir in the sour cream, 1/4 cup at a time, until the mixture is smooth.

6. When the cake is cool, frost it. Top the cake with toasted slices of almonds, strawberries, raspberries etc.