Soul Food

So I have been making this chocolate cake - you know I like to make things two and three times to make sure it is something I can say that I make well, because there is a such thing as beginner's luck when it comes to baking and cooking. Anyway, I made this cake, and it turned out really well. I combined some concepts from a few different recipes, and I came up with a recipe for my Finer Woman Chocolate Cake (name after an event I first made it for). It is a moist chocolate cake with an Oreo cookie and cream cheese filling and frosting.

It tastes really good, but it is not aesthetically pleasing, and that bothers me. Because of the mixing, the icing and filling end up being a kind of a dark shade of gray, and the cake is a light brown, because the recipe calls for pressed cocoa.

I may be able to substitute baking chocolate for the cocoa to come out with a darker result, so we'll see. But what can I do about the icing and filling? It really is a delicioius cake, but I would love for it to look as good as it tastes. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know...