Yes, it really is that good. What the butter/sugar mixture does to the crust is unbelieveable. I made this two weeks ago, and people are still telling me how good it was, and everyone wants the recipe. I thought it was a lot more work than my regular recipe (and people rave about it, too!), but the difference in the crust alone is worth it!

This cake was the hit of the party. I added a big handfull of mini chocolate chips to the cake batter and used all Kahula, no vodka, in the cake and glaze. Poured Pro Ganache from this site over it and garnished with drizzles of melted white chocolate. It was beautiful, and tasted like chocolate heaven.

Although this cake did not come out quite right when I made it, it still tasted delicious. I suspect most of my problem was taking the advice of other reviewers. As I wanted more of a dessert cake than a coffee cake, I took the advice of the two reviewers who suggested increasing from 1 to 2 cups of chopped figs in the batter and pureeing those figs with the evaporated milk before adding to the batter. Unfortunately, this made the batter so dense, the layers hardly rose. Plus, I burned the outer edges and bottom while trying to get the middle to cook. Every time I stuck a toothpick in the middle, it came out with crumbs so I kept baking until I realized I'd ruin the cake if I kept going. I had to cut off the sides and bottoms to get rid of the burnt areas while the middle was still mildly soft. I don't think pureeing the figs is such a bad idea, but I'd leave it at 1 cup in the batter, not 2. I still made the filling/topping, layered the cake with it, and just cut the cake into bars so as not to waste it. Despite all my troubles, the bars were still delicious. I'd definitely make this cake again, but will stick closer to the original recipe and ignore the reviewers!