Chocolate and Strawberries Cake

Cake:
Position rack in center of your oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8” cake pans, lining the bottom of the pans with parchment paper and greasing that as well.

Combine cocoa powder and semisweet chocolate in a medium bowl. Pour ½ cup boiling water over cocoa powder and chocolate and whisk until smooth. Whisk in buttermilk. Set mixture aside.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in another medium bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat brown sugar and butter in a large bowl until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until light and creamy. Beat in dry ingredients and chocolate mixture.

Transfer to prepared pans, dividing equally between the two pans. Bake until a tester comes out clean 20-25 minutes. Cool cakes in pans for 15 minutes, then cut around pan sides to loosen cakes before turning out onto racks. Peel off parchment paper and cool completely.

Icing:
Combine cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and a dash of salt in a mixing bowl and mix until light and fluffy.

Reserve a few strawberries for garnish if you’d like. Stem the rest of the strawberries and slice them in half. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with 4 Tablespoons of granulated sugar. Stir together and let sit for 30 minutes. Divide the marinated strawberries in half and mash up both bowls with a fork (you don’t have to make it a pulp, you can leave some pieces mostly whole). Sprinkle each bowl with 1 Tablespoon of sugar and let sit for another 30 minutes.

Assembly:
Place one layer of chocolate cake on serving platter or plate. Top with half of the mashed strawberries. Spread a little less than 1/3 of the icing over the strawberries. Place second cake layer on top. Put the rest of the mashed strawberries on top of the cake. Add half of the remaining icing and spread over strawberries. Use the remaining frosting to ice the sides of the cake. If you kept some strawberries whole, you can slice them and use to garnish the cake.

Store cake in the fridge and serve slightly chilled.