Why This Will Be Your Favorite Chocolate Cake Recipe
Looking for the Best, Super Moist, Rich, Dark Chocolate Cake Recipe
- It’s Quick! About an hour and fifteen minutes from start to finish for this mouth watering chocolate cake!
- It’s a Simple, One Bowl Recipe! Every ingredient in this delicious chocolate cake recipe except one is probably in your kitchen right now! And the one ingredient that isn’t is commonly available at the grocery store. There are no complicated steps to prepare this outstanding chocolate cake. Just dump everything into one bowl at the same time… except the hot water… and mix it up! Making an amazing cake has never been easier.
- It’s Inexpensive! it costs less than $4.00 for the ingredients. That’s less than half the cost of a store bought chocolate cake.
- It’s a Perfect Cake for Entertaining! Your guests will find this cake both irresistible, moist, and delicious and think about how good your chocolate cake is every time they see you! They’ll want your secret recipe.
- It’s the Ultimate Chocolate Birthday Cake! That’s because both adults and kids absolutely love it!
Family members who normally don’t stop by will stop in if they hear you made this fabulous cake!I know what this cake tastes like! It tastes like MORE!Best Chocolate Cake…It was so moist and deliciousOMG!!! SOOOO MOIST AND DELIIIICCIIOOUUSS!!I am not sure whether I should curse you or thank you…each time, it’s come out perfectly. It really is the best and easiest moist chocolate cake recipe I’ve come across
Use Oil And Buttermilk For A Moist Chocolate Cake
Buttermilk plays two important roles in making the best chocolate cake.
In addition to adding an ever-so-subtle tang, the acid in the buttermilk helps keep this cake incredibly tender and makes for a moist chocolate cake recipe.
If you dont have any buttermilk on hand, simply use this buttermilk substitute and youre golden!
This cake also uses oil instead of butter. While butter provides a lot of flavor in recipes such as 7UP Pound Cake and Homemade Funfetti Cupcakes, oil gives cakes a lovely, light texture.
Since the combo of unsweetened cocoa powder and Dutch-process cocoa give this cake so much chocolatey flavor, we dont necessarily need the flavor of the butter to compete or overpower the chocolate.
Cocoa can also easily dry out cakes, so using a neutral-flavored oil in combination with the buttermilk makes sure both the chocolate flavor and moist texture of this cake really sing.
Sift The Dry Ingredients
Yes, this cake is simple. Yes, its a one-bowl wonder.
But yes, Im highly encouraging you to sift the dry ingredients:
- flour
- baking powder
- salt
It makes a huge difference, especially because cocoa powder is notorious for getting those pesky lumps which dont whisk/mix out very well. And no one likes to get a clumpy, dry cocoa powder bomb in the middle of a bite of cake.
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What Makes Chocolate Cake Moist
This perfect combination of oil, milk and boiling water makes this recipe stand out without having to use melted chocolate. The fats in the oil, protein in milk and temperature of the water makes the chocolate flavour develop nicely while baking and providing the essentials for that moist crumb youre looking for.
Dont over-mix OR over-bake. This chocolate cake only needs about 30-35 minutes in the oven, or until a wooden skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
How To Make A Chocolate Cake From Scratch
Once youve gathered your ingredients, its time to prepare your cake batter! Heres a simple break down on how to make the chocolate cake layers:
- Grease and line your cake pans with parchment paper: This will make it much easier to remove the cake layers from the pan, trust me!
- Sift the dry ingredients together: This will help ensure that everything is well combined and remove any lumps of cocoa powder.
- Whisk in the sugars: I typically add sugar along with the wet ingredients, but I prefer to whisk the brown sugar and granulated in along with the dry ingredients in this cake.
- Add the wet ingredients : Once the dry ingredients and sugars are mixed together, youll mix in your buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla extract. The batter will be very thick like the picture above on the right, similar to a fudgy brownie batter.
- Mix in the boiling water & espresso powder: For the last step, youll whisk together your boiling water and espresso powder, then mix it into the batter. The batter will be very thin at this point, this is okay!
- Pour the batter into your cake pans: Once the batter is ready, youll divide it evenly between your cake pans.
- Bake the cake layers: The baking time will vary depending on the pans that you use. For this recipe, I prefer to use three 8-inch cake pans which takes about 30 minutes. Two 9-inch cake pans will take about the same amount of time.
- Allow to cool: Youll want to let the cake layers cool completely before adding the frosting.
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How To Make The Best Moist Chocolate Buttermilk Cake
absolutely THE BEST chocolate cake I have ever had!Everyone I’ve baked this cake for, says it is to die for.your recipe tops it off with incredible moistness!Your cake recipe is absolutely perfect.this IS truly the best chocolate cake recipe EVER! Prep Time: 15 Minutes Yield: One 9″ x 12″ Single Layer Cake
Perfect Chocolate Cake My Perfect Chocolate Cake Recipe Is The Best
I know youre always on the hunt for the best chocolate cake recipe. And I will let you know, I have made a LOT of chocolate cakes over the years. Youll find so many chocolate cake recipe on this site, like my Ridiculous Cake Cake if you are looking for an ultra fudgy chocolate cake, or my Sunday Chocolate Cake if you want a cake recipe to make in a 9×13 panand SO many others in between!
But this is my GO-TO recipe when Im looking for a chocolate layer cake, because not only is it easy, with very little prep time, its very soft, and packed with the perfect amount of chocolate flavor. You can see by the pictures the texture is ultra moist. It literally melts in your mouth!
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The Best Sheet Cake Deserves The Best Bakeware
And spread it evenly.
Bake the cake at 350-degrees for 20 minutes. While the cake is baking, its time to make the evil, decadent frosting.
Chop 1/2 cup pecans
Into pretty small pieces. Keep on choppinthe smaller and crunchier, the better.
In a saucepan , melt 1 3/4 sticks of regular butter
Once the butter is melted, add 4 heaping tablespoons cocoa powder.
Stir together, and allow to bubble for 30 seconds. Turn off heat.
Then add 6 tablespoons milk
And 1 teaspoon vanilla. Stir together.
Then add 1 lb. powdered sugar. Actually, I like to add about 1/2 cup less than 1 lb., but I was too embarrassed to admit that I wouldnt be able to tell you what quantity that is. So add a pound, but hold a little back, and please dont ask me how much that is, because I hate math.
Stir together
How To Make The Easiest Chocolate Cake
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How To Make Our Test Kitchens Favorite Chocolate Layer Cake
Taste of Home
Itll only take you one bite to recognize why this cake is a favorite in our Test Kitchen. Not only does it look amazing, but it also won the grand prize at the Alaska State Fair when our reader Cindi DeClue entered the contest. You can get the full details on this chocolate layer cake recipe right here.
How I Tested The Cakes
Every cake was made on the same day and exactly as written. I didnt take any creative liberties and tried to replicate the steps as faithfully as I could. If a recipe specifically called for a certain brand of ingredient to be used, I used it. I wanted it to be a fair competition and I was diligent about keeping things consistent.
I also grabbed some of my friends to taste the cakes to see what they thought. Surprisingly there was a lot of agreement in our opinions, and we all came away with a lot of tricks for better cake-baking.
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How To Bake Your Incredibly Moist Chocolate Cake
How Can I Amp Up The Flavor Of This Chocolate Cake
An easy trick to make the chocolate flavor more intense is to use a Dark or Dutch Process unsweetened cocoa powder, like I mentioned above. Dutch Process cocoa powder has a smooth, bittersweet chocolate flavor, a lot like an Oreo Cookie!
Another great way to amp up the chocolate flavor is to use coffee in place of the water! You cant really taste the coffee flavor, it will just intensify the chocolate. This trick is use a lot in baking chocolate cakes and brownies.
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The Best Chocolate Cake Recipe With Coffee
This cake is dark, moist, rich and incredibly decadent. Seriously, its the best chocolate cake Ive ever tasted.
A little bit of coffee blends amazingly well with the cocoa to create the most intense and delicious chocolate cake that youll ever taste.
Dont freak out if you dont like the taste of coffee. You actually cant taste it in this cake!
Coffee simply enhances the flavor of chocolate. In this cake, it deepens that rich, chocolatey flavor.
If you are really opposed to using coffee, you can swap it out for water.
You can also use espresso powder use a teaspoon of espresso powder along with 1 cup of water in place of the 1 cup of coffee.
Do I Have To Use The Espresso Powder In The Recipe
If you would prefer not to use it, you can absolutely omit it from any of the chocolate baking recipes that I have included it in. It will not change the texture or the baking results of the recipe. But once you taste the cake baked with the espresso powder, youll be able to immediately notice when you bake it without!
Heres my Homemade Espresso Powder recipe. I hope you enjoy it and the delicious recipes you create with it!
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How To Top My Favorite Chocolate Cake Recipe
Whats a cake without some frosting?
My homemade buttercream frosting is a delicious way to top the best chocolate cake.
Rich chocolate cake paired with sweet vanilla buttercream? Sign me up.
If you are a true chocolate fanatic and want double the chocolate, I would go for chocolate buttercream frosting instead.
If you really want to play up the coffee angle, why not try using a coffee buttercream?
And who doesnt love chocolate and strawberries together? Top your chocolate cake with sweet strawberry frosting for a play on chocolate covered strawberries!
I have even paired this cake recipe with chocolate ganache and salted caramel to make a Double Chocolate Salted Caramel Cake.
Incredibly Quick And Easy
Its astonishingly quick to make the batter, with all the ingredients mixed up in one bowl using a whisk.
Theres no need to cream butter like the usual recipes because this one is made with oil which is the reason why this cake is beautifully moist. No more dry chocolate cake! .
Im publishing this recipe as part of the Easter Recipes posted yesterday! So here it is, dolled up for Easter. The same cake in the photos above, the same frosting, topped with speckled Easter eggs, baby chicks , and a chocolate basket. Ive provided directions in the notes of the recipe for how I made that chocolate basket .
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The Crowdpleaser: Add A Pinchs The Best Chocolate Cake Recipe
- Overall rating: 8/10
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This is a solid cake recipe. Its moist, rich, and has a light texture that isnt overwhelming or too wet. Its a great go-to cake recipe, but its nothing groundbreaking. Its fairly easy to make, comes together quickly, and does the job. The addition of espresso powder in both the frosting and cake gave it a nice rich flavor that brought out the bitterness of the chocolate and made the flavor shine.This cake was almost the winner , and I thoroughly enjoyed eating it. It was a close call and a great, quicker alternative to the winner, if youre in a rush.
Can I Use Semi
While morsels are often less expensive and easier to find, we wouldnt recommend using morsels for this recipe. Since the semi-sweet chocolate in this recipe needs to be melted, you want to use a chocolate that melts easily. Morsels have less cocoa butter than baking squares, so theres a higher chance of your chocolate clumping or burning.
Morsels are also designed to melt slightly while retaining their shape so theyre often used for chocolate chip cookie recipes. Melting them down can be difficult because they may contain stabilizers or even wax to prevent them from losing their shape.
Baking squares, on the other hand, are meant to be melted. They have a high cocoa butter content, which helps them melt evenly and easily. So stick with baking squares for this chocolate cake recipe.
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