very good

This cake is deliciously dark, not too sweet, and very moist. It fudgey, rich, and smooth. The frosting is pretty good, but it's a bit simple and tends to harden and fall off the cake. It has been a big hit with my whole family. However, I am not a big fan of dates and neither is anybody else in my family, so I decided not to add the filling and left it out of the recipe. Instead I added a simple orange filling made out of orange juice, sugar, lemon juice, orange zest, flour, and an egg. I cooked it in a double boiler and spread it in the middle of the cake when cool. I think the orange flavor was a nice counterpoint to the richness of the chocolate. I think if I make this cake again, I will make it a four layer cake instead, so I can add more filling. The layers are too thick to really get the full effect of frosting/cake/filling. I rated this recipe four stars because I felt the frosting was not fantastic and I also did not use the filling, but in every other way this cake is great!

An AMAZING Recipe. I'm writing this review my 5th time coming here, and will be printing it to write it down in our families cook book. (some things inside it are up to 100 year old!)

This cake was delicious. I was afraid there was a mistake with the icing as I had never seen icing with so few ingredients, but it came out perfectly; I just ended up making another batch because I didn't think it was enough to frost the entire cake. Be sure to well-grease and flour the pans. I used non-stick pans and didn't do a terrific job and had some trouble with the cake sticking. The cake was very moist and the icing is sooooo good--nice and yummy, not sweet--more like a ganache with a dark chocolate taste that works great with the moist cake. The filling is sweet. I chilled it while the cake was cooling to make it easier to fill. Fills the house with a terrific chocolatey aroma.