I bake scratch as much as possible and so I usually make the Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake with SCP1127s modifications or I have made Martha Stewart's One Bowl Chocolate Cake which I quite like as well.

This is Martha's recipe:

http://www.marthastewart.com/346395/one-bowl-chocolate-cake

However my cousin has asked to make a devils food cake with a "rich chocolate icing" for her son's bar mitzvah in June and I don't want to resort to a WASC with the Devil's Food mix. Also I've never been able to get a dark brown chocolately colour to my chocolate buttercream. It lightens the longer it's beaten, even if I use ganache in my SMBC. I'll have to ask her if she means "rich" = flavour, or "rich" = colour.

This is my usual ABC chocolate buttercream recipe which has a really great flavour. :

http://cakecentral.com/recipe/crusting-chocolate-buttercream-frosting

What makes a chocolate cake a "devil's food cake"? Do either of my cake recipes qualify or do I need to look for something else? I'm okay with that as I have time to try it out.

And any suggestions for a rich chocolate icing or an idea to make the above recipe darker?

It's not going to be stacked or anything. It's a small function, no more than 50 guests, so likely just a 2" or 3" high 11x15 sheet covered in fondant and decorated to (proportionally) look like an iPad. I'm going to have to drive it 3-4 hours to the function so as much as I prefer SMBC, I don't think this will be an option. I think I'll need to go with an ABC that isn't overly sweet (I usually use SharonZ's when I want a vanilla icing).

Thanks
Pam

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-devils-food-cake.htm

For a darker, richer chocolate, try using Dutch cocoa.

Hershey's recipe will work fine. And my recipe for chocolate buttercream is a crusting fudge-y heaven. I use 2 1/2 sticks of real butter, 1 box of cream cheese (8 oz), 2lbs of powdered sugar a splash of vanilla and 3/4 of a cup powdered cocoa (add more to taste if you want--use Dutch if you can, but you don't have to). When you beat the butter and cream cheese together make sure it is light and fluffy then add your cocoa and let that mix well together. Add the powdered sugar slowly and then the vanilla. Your icing will look light but it darkens. It takes a while before the cocoa incorporates into the fat. It's why you add boiling water to the Hershey's recipe...so the cocoa will bloom. All my chocolate cakes have this frosting on it and you can see how dark it gets. I don't cover my cakes in fondant so any chocolate you see is buttercream. HTH!

If she really wants rich chocolate icing, why not use ganache straight up (unless the cost of all that chocolate is too much - but you could use chocolate chips for the ganache to save money). It will have that dark chocolate color and intense flavor she wants. If you prefer a cocoa based frosting, however, consider using a high quality cocoa. It makes a difference in taste over Hershey's. I'd go with the ganache.

carmijok...would love try your frosting..with all the butter and cream cheese can it sit a room temp?

I was in a tearing hurry the other day (cake to be collected in an hour and nowhere near ready) and just dumped a cup of butter , the entire tin of cocoa ( maybe a cup) and some ( say, 2 cups) icing sugar in the mixer and turned it on. It started to get a bit stiff so I grabbed the coffeepot and poured an ounce or so of cold coffee into the mix. I couldn't believe how rich it tasted! AND it was quite dark in color.