Perfect Chocolate Cake

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 26

Bake of the Day: Perfect Chocolate Cake

It's the final day of the month long mega marathon and I wanted to end it on a sweet note. I made this perfect chocolate cake for my husband's birthday, but the pictures I took looked awful, so I made it again couple of days back.

When I started planning for the marathon, I listed about 40~45 recipes that I wanted to try. I wanted to bake dishes that I've never made before like meringues, panettone, flat breads and so on. But when actual reality set in, the list got shorter and the dishes got simpler. I am happy with the baked dishes I posted in the marathon and hopefully I'll get to the dishes I had on my list along with the long list of bookmarks from my fellow marathoners.

Coming back to today's chocolate cake, I asked my husband what cake he wanted for his birthday. He started to recount a chocolate cake that one of his friends used to bake. Here's how he described the cake -- it's moist, it's fudgey, it's chocolatey AND it's delicious. I'm sure it was delicious because he remembers it so well after all these years, so it was quite a challenge for me to find a recipe that matches the one he's been thinking about all these years.

After trying quite a few chocolate cake recipes, I'm surprised that I didn't try this Hershey's Perfect Chocolate Cake recipe that everyone in the blogosphere and else where have already made years ago. This is probably the easiest cake to put together, everything goes into 1 bowl, whisked, poured into the baking pan and baked into chocolaty goodness.

The recipe makes 2 9" round cakes, but I halved the recipe and made only 1 cake. I'm giving the original recipe here. I also subbed the egg with egg replacer and used soy milk instead of regular milk.
Coming to the taste test, my husband said this cake comes very close to the one he remembers (uff... big sigh of relief). Both the kids loved it a lot too. I guess my quest for perfect chocolate cake ended and this will be made again and again :-)

Ingredients: Makes 2-9" round cakes or 3-8" round pans or 9"x13" baking pan or 12cup bundt cake or about 30 cupcakes

All purpose flour - 1¾cups*
Sugar - 2cups
Unsweetened Cocoa powder - ¾cup
Baking powder - 1½tsp
Baking soda - 1½tsp
Salt - 1tsp
Milk - 1cup (any dairy or non-dairy milk would work, I used unsweetened soy milk)
Eggs - 2 large**
Oil - ½cup
Vanilla extract - 2tsp
Boiling Water - 1cup

* I used 1¼cups all purpose flour and ½cup barley flour.
** I used 2tbsp egg replacer powder whisked in 6tbsp water.

Method:

•  Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 2 9" round cake pans or 12cup bundt cake pan or line 2 12-cup muffin pan with liners.
• In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix until combined.
• Add eggs (or egg replacer mixture), milk, vanilla extract and oil. Beat with a hand mixer for 2 minutes until well mixed. I whisked vigorously with a hand whisk for 3~4 minutes.
• Add the boiling water and mix until combined. The batter will be thin.
• Pour into the prepared pan or pans and bake for 30~35 minutes for the round cake pans, 35~40 minutes for the 9"x13" baking pan, 50~55 minutes-for the 12cup bundt cake pan and 22~25 minutes for the cupcakes. 
• Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and let cool on a wire rack. Cool completely before frosting.

Here's the recipe for the 'Perfect Chocolate Frosting'. This is also a Hershey recipe. I didn't really want to frost my cake, so I just made a thin icing and poured it over the cake. Frosting thickens nicely as it cools. 

Ingredients: Makes about 2 cups of frosting

Butter - ½cup

Unsweetened Cocoa Powder - ⅔cup
Powdered Sugar - 2~3cups
Milk - ⅓cup
Vanilla Extract - 1tsp

Method:

• Melt butter in a saucepan.
• Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency.
• Add more sugar or milk to adjust the consistency. 
• Stir in vanilla. Frost the cakes when completely cooled.

Sending this cake virtually over to my fellow marathoners. Here's for successfully completing the month long marathon and looking forward to joining you all again in the next one :-)

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 51.

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