Chocolate Peppermint Cake
Perfect for Christmas celebrations or for anyone who adores mint desserts, this impressive three-layer Chocolate Peppermint Cake is fluffy, tender, and ultra-rich. The chocolate cake layers, made with coffee, bittersweet chocolate, mayonnaise, and cocoa, are like a cross between a devil's food cake and a chocolate mayonnaise cake. And the minty Italian meringue frosting is soft, shiny, and marshmallowy. The whole thing is topped off with crushed soft peppermint candies for a fun and festive holiday look. (You can use crushed candy canes or hard peppermint candies but be warned—the hard texture isn't as easy to eat.) Although this cake is easy to make, our Test Kitchen recommends making the recipe step by step as directed in the instructions—don't make the cake and frosting out of order. The cake layers need to cool completely before they can be frosted. And if you make the frosting before the cake layers, it will deflate.
