I really, really like this chocolate-chili cake. I put in a touch more ancho chili and cayenne than the recipe called for, and next time I make it, I would use a little less frosting as the proportions were a bit off, but overall, excellent, if you like chili & chocolate. Maybe not quite as good as my memories of Charlie Trotter’s chili-chocolate cake, which I think might have had chili in the cake too, rather than coffee. But I am not Charlie Trotter, and this will do very nicely. Easy, too — nothing complicated about this one if you’ve made a cake from scratch before. I dusted it with a bit of cocoa powder too as well as cinnamon, for the two-tone effect. It goes very nicely with a glass of red wine.
