This cocoa-based cake is deeply chocolatey with an incredibly moist, tender crumb. It surprises me every single time with how good it is for something so easy.
I have used this recipe to make sheet cakes, layer cakes, cupcakes, mini cupcakes, etc. Really, you can’t go wrong.
Everything gets tossed in the standing mixer (no creaming of butter and sugar, or alternating between dry ingredients and liquid as in typical cake recipes). The cake batter is poured into cake pans, and popped in the oven. Easy as 1-2-3.
It is a great emergency chocolate cake to have in your repertoire for forgotten birthdays, last-minute visitors, or urgent Friday night chocolate cravings.
Smother it in this super-easy, 6-minute fluffy chocolate frosting. Not the fancypants Italian buttercream, the shortcut American-style buttercream that is basically just butter, icing sugar, and cocoa powder. Or try my fluffy vanilla frosting for a cookies and cream vibe. Couldn’t be simpler.
Essential Techniques Bakers Use to Keep Cakes Moist:
1. WEIGH Your Ingredients: One cup of flour by volume will be different if I scooped it or if you did because flour compacts and settles.
Too much flour by accidentally adding a few more tablespoons can make the difference between an incredible moist cake and a dry one.
2. Know when to beat and when to just combine ingredients: with some cakes like my Moist and fluffy Vanilla Cake, proper mixing is key to create enough air bubbles to leaven the cake, making it fluffy and moist.
For this moist chocolate cake cake, however, the baking soda and eggs do all of the leavening without any major muscle and it’s pretty darn foolproof. The only concern here is not to overmix it.
Batter-toughening gluten starts to develop as soon as liquid is added to the flour mixture, and it continues to get tougher the longer you stir. Stop the mixer once the largest lumps are gone (it’s ok if a few little ones remain).
3. Use data and not guesswork to check a cake’s doneness: if you press the cake and it’s a bit of bouncy (doesn’t feel like liquid under the surface), pull out your cooking thermometer.
The temperature in the middle of the cake should register 190ºF for it to be perfectly moist. This is the temperature at which the starch in the flour has finished setting, as have the eggs, and it is considered done. If the temperature isn’t there yet (you don’t want it to be lower, even by a few degrees), return the cake to the oven for another minute or two and check again.
I can’t stress enough how much more accurate it is to use a thermometer to eliminate all guesswork. This is probably the number one trick to a moist cake. Forget the toothpick, cake tester, finger touch test or inserting paring knives.
How to Freeze Chocolate Cake
- I don’t recommend freezing with frosting on.
- Allow the cake to cool in the pan fully.
- Place a layer of plastic on top of the cake and then place a cutting board or cooling rack on top.
- Flip the cake over. Remove the pan.
- Wrap the plastic up over the edges of the cake and then add another large piece and wrap it again as tightly as possible without crushing the cake. Make sure that none of the cake is exposed in the freezer as this can cause freezer burn.
- Now wrap it in a layer of foil. Label and date the cake. The cake will freeze well for 1 month and should be fine for up to 3 months.
The Best Chocolate Cake Recipe
What makes this recipe the best? First off, it is inspired by Hershey’s chocolate cake recipe which is the same recipe my grandma used. They added coffee to their cake which does magical things to chocolate.
Second, this is truly a moist and flavorful chocolate cake. Is there anything worse than dry cake? Nope. You will never have that problem with this recipe!
Ingredients:
- 2 cups (240g/ 8.46oz) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ cup (113g/ 3.9Oz) unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 cup (100g/ 3.5Oz) Dutch-processed cocoa powder sifted
- ½ cup (120ml) vegetable oil
- 1½ cups (300g/ 10.5Oz) granulated sugar
- ½ cup (110g/ 3.8Oz) packed light brown sugar
- 3 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup (120g/ 4.2Oz) sour cream at room temperature
- 1 cup (120ml) milk at room temperature
- 1 cup (240ml) hot coffee
- chocolate buttercream frosting
Instructions :
This decadent chocolate food cake will melt in your mouth with an intense chocolate flavor.
Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare 2 9inch baking pans. Butter and flour the pans then line the bottom with parchment paper and set aside. Into a large mixing bowl, sift in 2 cups of all-purpose flour together with a teaspoon of salt, baking powder, and baking soda then sift them up and give them a whisk then set that aside.
Into a medium-sized bowl, add one cup of dutch processed cocoa powder, to that add half a cup of vegetable oil, and whisk it up into a black beautiful cocoa solution.
Prepare your stand mixer with the paddle attachment and add half a cup of unsalted room temperature butter and cream it up until nice and smooth (that should take about 30 seconds). Add the chocolate solution into the butter together with half a cup of light brown sugar and one and a half cups of granulated sugar.
Mix that up for about 5 minutes until it’s really light and fluffy scraping the bowl down in between the mixing. With the mixer on low speed, add three room temperature eggs together with vanilla extract then reduce the speed to the lowest setting and add the dry mixture in thirds. To add more richness to the cake, add half a cup of sour cream and half a cup of milk into the batter alternating it with the dry ingredients.
Mix until just combined with no dry ingredients seen then switch to a spatula and finish that off by scraping the bottoms and sides of the bowl. Lastly, add one cup of hot coffee, the coffee taste won’t be felt in the cake but it will help amp up the chocolate flavor.
If you don’t want to use the coffee you can alternate with hot water instead. Whisk the hot coffee/water into the chocolate batter until you have a uniform consistency.
Divide your batter equally in the baking pans and bale them into the preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes or until the center is set. To make the chocolate buttercream frosting, add butter into the bowl of a stand mixer and whip on high for 5 minutes until light and cloudy.
Add half a cup of cocoa powder, salt and vanilla then mix until nice and combined. Once that is well combined, add 6 to 8 cups of powdered sugar one by one while it mixes on low speed and add about 3 tablespoons of cream.
The sugar is according to your taste so you can use more or less. To assemble the cake, make sure they are completely cooled down, place it on a plate, and add a nice amount of frosting on top. Smooth that out to the edge and add the next layer ad cover with frosting.
Cover the cake with all the frosting and smooth it with a spatula. Enjoy the chocolate amazingness of this cake with your family.
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