Almond Chocolate Cake

If you haven't noticed, I've been trying to get rid of my pantry stocking of almond slices by making a number of almond desserts. Yesterday, I baked my first cake ever from scratch for my friend's daughter's 1st birthday. Of course, mine is a "back-up" cake in case they couldn't get the fancily decorated winnie-the-pooh cake. :)

I followed Dave Liebermen's "Best Chocolate Cake" recipe with a few modification. The cake turned out to be quite moist and semisweet. The almonds were (sorta) not helping with the overall taste of the chocolate. (I don't know why I always thought that nuts and chocolates can go splendidly together.)

As always, I don't follow the recipe exactly. I substituted agave nectar syrup instead of sugar and semisweet chocolate for bittersweet.