With Father’s Day coming up, I’ve been thinking more of my dad and Opa (my maternal grandfather) and their love of chocolate. I remember my dad getting a big box of Whoppers malt-chocolate balls in his Christmas stocking. Whenever we made long car trips to Baltimore, Md., to see Opa for the holidays and special occasions, we had a Hershey’s chocolate bar for him — and he often had one in the freezer that we knew was not for us to touch.

With family members on both sides of my family addicted to chocolate, it’s no wonder that I love it. Despite keeping a rather healthy kitchen, I admit to loving chocolate treats every now and then.

That said, it seems that the canister of Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa had been in my pantry a lot longer than a piece of chocolate would last in our home. Perhaps the keyword is “unsweetened.”

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I found myself looking for things to do with my three children. Having a chocolate craving, I decided to make the Grand Fudge Cake recipe on the back of the unsweetened cocoa. I opted to alter it by substituting whole wheat pastry flour and almond milk.

I poured the cake batter into the greased and floured pans and let them cook for the perfect time. When cooled, I called the kids into the kitchen and prepared to pull the cakes out of the circular pans and place them on my beautiful cake stand. Instead, the cake just crumbled. It still tasted good so I let the kids eat the crumbs from the first pan, throwing much of it away. We frosted the second pan with the delicious homemade fudge frosting and ate that later when my husband came home. That was just as crumbly, requiring a vacuum and a washcloth for each child.

Determined to figure out what went wrong, I took another look at the recipe. Hmm, could it have been the substituted whole wheat pastry flour or the almond milk? And that’s when I read “use two large eggs.” The eggs I used came from a local farm and were quite small. I called a good friend whose sister is a pastry chef and we concluded that a bit more egg would have held the cake together better.

So two days later, I tried the recipe again, this time making cupcakes so I could easily share my experiment with friends and neighbors. I used three small eggs and, just to make sure they came out right, also used the recipe’s recommended white flour. I am happy to report that they came out just right and that this truly satisfied all of our chocolate cravings for a little while. I highly recommend this recipe for Father’s Day.

Grand Fudge Cake

(from a Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa canister)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 3/4 cup(s) sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 large eggs

1 1/3 cups milk

Method:

Preheat oven to 350º F. Grease and lightly flour two 9-inch round cake pans. In a medium bowl, combine cocoa, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add vanilla and eggs one at a time, scraping bowl after each addition. Alternately add flour mixture and milk, starting and ending with flour mixture. Continue to mix on low speed until smooth. Pour into prepared pans. Bake 30-35 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the center of cake comes out clean.

Ghirardelli Butter Cream Frosting

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons butter softened (butter-flavored Crisco works great, too)

2 2/3 cups confectioners’ sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/3 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

In bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, mix confectioner’s sugar with cocoa. Blend sugar mixture with butter alternately with milk, beating well after each addition. Beat until smooth. Blend in vanilla. Frost.