22 June, 2020
Chocolate Cake
Ingredients:
- 2 cups sugar (*to cut back on some of the sugar you can replace some or all of it with applesauce, but treat applesauce as a wet ingredient)
- 1 3/4 cups flour
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup milk (I used almond milk, but any milk will do.)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1 serving instant coffee **optional, but the coffee really enhances the chocolate flavor.
**If I’m making cupcakes for a kids birthday I’ll replace all the sugar with applesauce and skip the instant coffee, there’s plenty of sugar in the icing!
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350°f
Grease and flour pans. Or if your making cupcakes put the paper liners in your cupcake pans now so that your ready, as this batter comes together pretty fast. I’m using three 6″ pans and I’ll have extra batter, but you can use two 9″ pans, or even 8″ pans. I should add that it makes 30 cupcakes! We’ll talk about bake times later.
Add all the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Stir well to combine. I’m using the bowl of my KitchenAid mixer because it’s my largest bowl, but I’m going to use my hand mixer this time.
Now add the eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla to the dry ingredients. Blend well with hand mixer for about 2 minutes.
For the boiling water I just microwave it for 2 minutes, be sure to use a microwave safe container. Don’t skip the boiling water, even if you decide to skip the instant coffee. The boiling water “blooms” the cocoa powder. This technique brings out the best in cocoa powder and unleashes its ultra-chocolatey potential. Now for the instant coffee… Not only will HOT coffee bloom the cocoa powder, but it also plays especially well with chocolate to make the rich flavor pop even more. **if you’re avoiding caffeine for any reason you can use decaf coffee.
Then carefully pour and stir in boiling water (w/ instant coffee if using) into cake ingredients. Mix until combined. The batter will be quite thin.
Pour into prepared pans and bake at 350°f until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. My 6″ pans were done in 25 minutes. For 8″ or 9″ it should take 30-35 minutes. Cupcakes (2/3 full) should take 22-25 minutes.
Cool for 10 minutes then remove from pans and allow to cool completely on wire cooling racks.
Decorate and devour! I’m certainly not a pro cake decorator (and there are plenty of YouTube videos out there with tips and tricks on decorating) but this was super easy and even kind of sloppy but still delicious!!
