Cake question

[woolymonkey]

Spidermonkey's birthday is coming up, so I need a weird and wonderful cake/pie recipe. Can anyone help? This is for a normal-sized family cake. I'll do a big chocolate guitar shaped thing later when his friends come round, but I have a recipe for that already. What I need is an interesting yet yummy cake to eat on the day--emphasis on yummy rather than novelty presentation. Spider is very adventurous with food, so suggest away. It doesn't have to look like a birthday cake. US Thanksgiving foods welcome. (Why yes, I have been reading penknife's poll.)

Spider likes:
chocolate
fruit
moist, gooey, sticky cake,
carrot cake
hot chocolate
chilli
cinnamon
syrup
strangeness
weird evil-looking food
really fancy-looking food
bananas
chocolate
things he hasn't tried before
(last time he asked for a Nigella Lawson recipe where you boil up whole clementines for hours to make a gooey syrupy cake thing--it was good)


He's not so keen on
coffee
walnuts
(not a problem in subtle quantities, but don't feature as main ingredients, please)

I can cope with:
hunting down strange ingredients
small amounts of alcohol in recipe
US, UK or metric units

Things I cannot cope with:
piped icing/frosting
complicated finishing touches just before serving
ingredients with US brand names and no description to help me substitute

Comments

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Fabulous Aztec choc cake -- basically your standard chocolate cake I use packet mix but don't tell anyone with a teaspoon of chili powder, a pinch of ground cloves and some cinnamon dusted on top. (Actually, honey and cinnamon topping works wonderfully but is ever so rich.)

Still-twitching blood sacrifices optional. Though zil_n_fruitcake may be able to oblige.

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

Think I'm going to combine that with desperance's suggestion below.