I Love Lando Calrissian Chocolate Cake

So everyone within three zip-codes of me knows that I have an unhealthy adoration for Luke Skywalker, that R2D2 will always be my #1 favorite Star Wars character (accept no substitutions), and that Chewbacca deserves WAY more love than he gets in canon and fandom and everything in between.

What they may not know is that Lando Calrissian makes me seriously question my sexual orientation which, until 27 December 2015 when I saw The Empire Strikes Back for the first time, was pretty securely pansexual with a heavy tilt towards women. Then Lando sauntered on the scene and into my heart in those goddamn polyester bellbottoms lord preserve me and I needed to take a moment to remember how to breathe.

This cake reminds me of him: Rich, beautiful, delicious, and riddled with all kinds of guilt. In Lando's case, the guilt comes from selling out his dear friend to a vacuum cleaner with a nasty attitude and a breathing problem. In the cake's case, it comes from the amount of butter, cream, and alcohol you'll be consuming with each slice. Both are totally justifiable, though. Ask if you want to hear how, then make yourself comfortable, because I can talk about Lando for hours.

True story.

I Love Lando Calrissian Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

1 box dark chocolate cake mix (regular chocolate cake will work if you can't find dark)

1 box instant chocolate pudding mix

1/3 cup butter, melted

1 1/4 cup Irish cream (get the cheap stuff, Bailey's is wicked over-priced)

3 eggs

More butter for your pan

Whipped topping (optional)

Instructions

- Preheat oven to 325*F and butter a bundt pan. Set that noise aside.

- In a large mixing bowl, mix together the cake mix, pudding mix, butter, Irish cream, and eggs.

- Beat with an electric mixer for 2 minutes, or until the mixer waves the white flag. No joke, this stuff is thick. It'll fight you. Let it win.

- Dump it into the bundt pan.

- Bake 35-40 minutes or until a poinky-stick inserted in the center comes out clean.

- Cool on a wire rack for like 20 minutes, or until the bottom (top?) is cool enough for you to touch and the cake has pulled away from the sides.

- Nudge the bit around the center hole to make sure it's not going to stick before you flip the cake. Torn cake is sad cake.

- Put a dinner plate over the open bit of the bunt pan, then flip the whole mess. The cake should drop right down to the plate.

- Let it cool a bit more before cutting into it.

- Top with whipped cream if that's your jam. My jam is to top it with strawberry preserves. True story.

Extra Special Marvel Post-Credits Notes:

My partner and I both ate a slice after lunch and it was very good but very rich. He saw me cutting up more slices (to put away) and said, "Holy shit, you can eat more of that?" and if I'd not been in such a deep food coma, I would've said, "Bitch I can put this whole cake away," because technically, that's exactly what I was doing. Instead, I just kinda looked at him and moo'd unintelligently. Opportunity lost, man.

On the topic of cutting up this monstrosity, I cut it along the lines in the bundt pan, which meant that I had big slices and small slices. I've decided the big slices are the post evening bike-commute servings and the small slices are the post-dinner servings, and yes, I intend to eat one of each every day.

Come over here and stop me, I dare you. *flex*