Chocolate cake

Sep 3, 2012

For C2’s wedding I did lots and lots of research on making big cakes. I found this recipe buried inside Smitten Kitchen. The whole thread there (especially the many, many comments) taught me a lot about baking big cakes. C2’s wedding cake was part this cake and part champagne cake.

If you’re going to make a big-deal cake for a lot of people, I suggest a lot of practice. This cake is very moist, yet sturdy enough to hold up when big layers are stacked on top of each other.

To make a big cake takes more than multiplying recipes and bigger pans. You have to worry about structural integrity, keeping it moist, baking evenly, and lots of other concerns. YouTube is a good place to get making, assembly, and construction techniques.

This is a big recipe: it makes 3 – 8″ round layers or 2 – 10″ round layers. To convert to other pan sizes, look here.

Go to the recipe.

Combine all the dry ingredients.

Mix for a few seconds to combine.

Add butter and buttermilk.

Mix on low speed until the batter doesn’t fly all over the kitchen

Blend on higher speed for about 2–3 minutes, scraping bowl several times.

In another bowl, whisk the eggs, vanilla, and coffee together.

Add the liquid to the batter in 3 steps.

Beat just until blended and scrape bowl well after each addition.

Cut parchment paper to cover bottom of pans.

Grease and flour the pans (Baker’s Joy makes this much easier). Put parchment paper in bottom of pans, grease and flour (or spray Baker’s Joy) the parchment paper.

Divide the batter among the prepared pans.

Bake at 350° until toothpick in center comes out clean. Let cakes sit for about 5 minutes.

Turn cakes out of pans onto wire racks to cool. Remove parchment paper after the cakes cool, if it didn’t come off in the pan.

Frost the cake as desired. This is one way to go:

Frost the bottom layer with peanut butter buttercream.

Place next layer on top.

Finish frosting with buttercream frosting. To smooth the frosting (no photo for that), let the cake sit for about 20–30 minutes to harden off a bit. Then take a piece of plain paper, lay it over the frosting, and run your hand quickly over the paper lightly. The heat from your hand will smooth the frosting and remove small imperfections.

Here’s a drizzle of dark chocolate. Place some chocolate in a small bowl and melt in the microwave. Very low power for a short amount of time; you don’t want to cook the chocolate. Then drizzle it over the cake however you like.

This cake is sitting on a cardboard cake circle on a lazy susan that we’ve had forever, which I use to frost cakes. I hold an angled spatula against the cake while turning the lazy susan. To lift the cake off the turntable to a serving plate, I use a cake lifter to not lift so much as gently slide the finished cake onto the plate.

I forgot to take pretty pictures of cake slices, so here’s the aftermath of this particular party:

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Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake that is deep, rich, and moist. Also quite sturdy, so holds up well in multiple layers.

Course Dessert

Keyword chocolate, chocolate cake, cake, frosting, icing, dessert, layer cake

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 45 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 cups cake flour don't use regular flour
• 3 cups sugar
• 1-1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder like Hershey's: not dutch processed
• 3 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cubes butter cut into about 4 chunks each room temperature (12 oz.)
• 1-1/2 cups buttermilk
• 3 eggs
• 1-1/2 cups brewed coffee coffee makes it richer and deeper, but you can use just water or any combination of water and Amaretto, Kahlua, or other liqueur. I don't like the taste of coffee, so I use very weak coffee just to give it a little depth.
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Instructions

Cake batter

1. In the mixer bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
2. Mix for a few seconds to combine the dry ingredients.
3. To the mixing bowl, add the butter and buttermilk. Blend on low speed until moistened and so the batter doesn't fly all over the kitchen. Scrape bowl.

4. Then blend on higher speed and beat until fluffy, 2 – 3 minutes, scraping bowl several times.

5. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, vanilla, and coffee together.
6. Add the wet ingredients to the batter in 3 steps. Beat just until blended and scrape the bowl after each addition.

Prepare pans

1. Cut parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pans.
2. Butter and flour (or use cocoa powder instead of flour) the pans (or use Baker's Joy).
3. Line the bottom of the pans with parchment paper and butter or spray the paper. The parchment paper is extra insurance that the cake will come out neat and clean, without chunks of cake stuck to the bottom of the pan. Worth it.

Bake the cake

1. Divide the batter among the prepared pans.

2. Bake at 350° for 38 – 60 minutes (very much depends on the pan sizes), or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, depending on your oven and pan size.

3. After removing from oven, let cakes sit in pans for about five minutes.
4. Turn baked cakes onto a wire rack.
5. When layers are cool, remove parchment paper (if it didn't come off when removing from pan).

6. Frost layers. Or, if baking ahead, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and freeze.

   When ready to frost the cake after it's been frozen, spread a thin crumb coat of frosting on the frozen layers. When that has dried, finish frosting and assembling the cake.
   

Recipe Notes

It's easier to frost cake when it's frozen, and if you're making a big special-occasion cake, you'll likely have to freeze the layers as you bake them because it will take you several days. If you wrap the unfrosted layers well in several layers of plastic wrap, place them inside a zip-lock bag, and freeze, the cake will still taste great.

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Buttercream Frosting (creamier)

Sep 3, 2012

I used this recipe for C2’s wedding cake and the guests seemed to like it. For this wedding cake, I did a lot of research and testing. When researching buttercream frosting and cake decorating, I found that many professionals use all shortening in their buttercream frosting so that it will be pure white. I find all-shortening frosting to be too greasy feeling, but I wanted something creamier than the all-butter frosting I usually make (my mom has always used half Crisco and half butter), so I kept searching.

From multiple cake-decorating sources I found reference to “high-ratio” shortening (Sweetex is one brand), but could find that only at Cash and Carry in 50-pound boxes. Don’t tell anyone, but I ended up using Wal-Mart brand shortening because one of the ingredients is “meat fats.” I made my choice based on nothing more than that using lard in biscuits makes them taste way better than using shortening. I don’t anticipate ever needing 50 pounds of shortening, but if I ever come across a smaller quantity of Sweetex (and don’t have to pay high shipping charges), I’ll try that to see how it compares.

Because of the vanilla and butter, this is not bright white. Because I’m not interested in shortening-only or imitation vanilla, I’m happy with it being slightly off-white. Besides, I’m constitutionally incapable of not using food coloring in frosting.

This is creamy rather than greasy.

Go here for peanut butter buttercream.
Go to the recipe.

Cream the butter and shortening together.

Add powdered sugar and cream together. I added a little green food coloring here.

Add milk and vanilla (or whatever flavoring you’re using) and cream together for about 3 minutes.

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Buttercream Frosting (creamier)

Creamy buttercream frosting, easy to make.

Course Dessert

Prep Time 10 minutes

Total Time 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 cups butter Many recipes call for unsalted butter, but I found that left the frosting too bland.
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 2 pounds powdered sugar
• dsah salt
• 4 tablespoons milk preferably whole milk or cream
• 2 tablespoons vanilla or other flavoring, but adjust amount to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract optional

Instructions

1. Cream butter and shortening together until fluffy, a few minutes.
2. Add powdered sugar, milk, salt, and vanilla.

3. Cream together until smooth, 1 – 3 minutes.

4. Add more milk if too stiff, more powdered sugar if too thin.

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This chocolate cake is not new

Oct 8, 2011

Serious Eats and Punchfork are on my Morning Coffee list, which opens, all at once, websites that I look at almost every day, even though I don’t like coffee. From there, I follow links to the latest great thing. Because I’m always on the lookout for good chocolate cakes, I often follow links to some recipe for a fabulously moist and easy-to-make chocolate cake. Make it in one bowl! No eggs! No milk! No butter! I can’t believe how good this is because it’s so easy!

Great, yes, but not latest. Almost always, the recipes turn out to be variations of what my grandma called wacky cake. It’s C2’s go-to cake. She brought it to a family 4th of July get-together once, and her sort-of step-grandmother asked what kind of cake it was. “Wacky cake.” “Oh, Wacky Cake. What brand is that?” A little confused about what “what brand?” meant, C2 said, “Well, you just mix up a bunch of stuff in a bowl. I think the cocoa was Hershey’s?” When Sort-of Step-grandma realized that C2 had made it from scratch, she hurried to apologize, profusely, for making such a grievous error in assuming she’d used a mix, when obviously she’d taken such time, effort, and care to produce a from-scratch cake for her family for this very special occasion, and I only asked about the “brand” because it’s so good and tastes so much better than any mix cake I’ve ever tasted. It was sweet that she thought C2 would be offended by assuming the cake had come from a mix, but no apology was necessary, and it’s easier than using a mix.

In my search for the perfect chocolate cake and after years of reading about how good it is, I finally made the chocolate sheet cake recipe from The Pioneer Woman. While I’ve made many of her recipes (always excellent: everyone loves the Crash Hot Potatoes every time I make them – although I bake instead of boil them because I’m lazy and that means one less pan to wash – also, you can never use too much olive oil on the pan) and her site is one of my staples when looking for something new, I think wacky cake is better. And lots simpler to make. I sent some cupcakes to C2 for her birthday and she thought they were wacky cake.

I always assumed my grandma made wacky cake because she was cheap frugal (she’d halve the sugar in recipes, skip egg yolks when called for, etc. I’m not a fan of pale, sour, lemon meringue pie, but then I was raised on sugar sandwiches ((white bread, butter, sugar)) and graham crackers with frosting). Now I realize that she probably used the wacky cake recipe because she lived through the Depression and the rationing during WWII, and that’s all they had. Usually those kinds of hard-times recipes make passable substitutes, but never as good as the real thing with eggs and butter and cream and other luxuries, which is not the case with this recipe. But those recipes that say that wacky cake is so good that it doesn’t need frosting? That’s just crazy talk. As silly as saying that graham crackers are worth eating without frosting.