Birthday Cake, Part 1: Chocolate Edition

As I mentioned in my last guest post, I am making my family's traditional birthday cake for Tia and myself this weekend. Since one of my manager's birthdays is the day before mine, I also promised to bring some cake to work this week. I figured I'd make a chocolate cake today since a. the cake I'm making this weekend is a vanilla cake and b. the cocoa powder in our cupboard expires at the end of the month. I found this recipe in one of my mom's cookbooks and thought I'd give it a try, and it turned out great!

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

What You'll Need:

-For the cake:

3/4 cup butter, softened

3 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups milk

-For the frosting:

3/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

8 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cups milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

milk

Note: The frosting recipe yields enough to frost the tops and sides of two 8- or 9-inch layer cakes, so you are instructed to halve it to frost a 13x9x2-inch cake, which is what I did.

What To Do:

Start by preheating your oven to 350F and setting the butter and eggs on the counter so that they start to approach room temperature (the recipe says to leave them out for about half an hour, which is roughly the amount of time it takes to grease the pans and get the rest of your ingredients assembled).

Ingredients on the counter and ready to go.

If you are planning on removing the cake from the pan before serving, such as for layer cakes, or in my case, to put into another container for travel, grease the bottom of the pan and then line it with waxed paper, like so.

Then grease the bottoms and sides of the pans and lightly flour them, or, since you're making a chocolate cake, use some cocoa powder in place of the flour, which is what I did today. These steps probably sound tedious and seemed that way at the time, but my cake came out of the pan really easily and looked absolutely perfect, so they were worth the time and effort. If you're planning on leaving the cake in the pan, you can just grease it and skip the waxed paper and flour steps.

Cake pan greased and lightly coated in cocoa powder.

You should then combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and set it aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Gradually add the sugar, about 1/4 cup at a time, beating on medium speed until well combined (about three to four minutes). Scrape the sides of the bowl and beat the mixture on medium speed for two minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition (about one minute total). Then beat in the vanilla.

Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk to the butter mixture, beating on low speed after each addition until just combined. Once you are finished, beat the batter on medium to high speed for 20 seconds more. I will note that at this point, I was mildly concerned, because the batter seemed very runny, although it smelled marvelous.

The batter, which was approximately the consistency of pudding.

My guess is that although the recipe doesn't specify the type of milk you are supposed to use, it wants you to use whole milk, so since we only had skim, that might have had an impact on the consistency. Thankfully, this didn't appear to have any negative impact on the cake. Your final step is to spread the batter evenly into your prepared pan(s).

Bake the cake(s) for 35 to 40 minutes (for 8-inch pans or a 13x9x2-inch pan), 30 to 35 minutes for 9-inch pans, or until a wooden toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan for ten minutes before removing it and peeling off the waxed paper.

While you are (impatiently) waiting for the cake to cool on a wire rack, you can start making the frosting. Start by beating the butter until smooth in a large mixing bowl. Beat the cocoa powder into the butter before gradually adding two cups of the powdered sugar, beating well. Slowly beat in the 1/4 cup milk and the vanilla. Then gradually add the rest of the powdered sugar and just enough milk so that the frosting reaches spreading consistency (it doesn't take much; I added approximately another 1/8 cup and a tbsp of milk for the halved recipe). This recipe yielded more than enough for me to frost the cake as well as eat enough to make me feel sick to my stomach, although I partially blame that on my family members' unwillingness to spoil their diets by licking the bowl. It's a sad, sad day when people turn down bowls containing chocolate buttercream frosting, let me tell you.

A photo of the finished cake, which I decorated with orange sprinkles because, as my mother said, "People like that."

This cake was delicious, and that's saying something since I don't really like chocolate cake. The cake itself was moist and had a great chocolate flavor, and since it wasn't very sweet, it paired really well with the sugary frosting. You definitely get a lot of chocolate in one bite, so this would be a great cake for the chocoholic in your life. You could also pair this cake with a vanilla buttercream or cream cheese frosting to tone down the chocolate a little bit, but really, why would you want to do that?

If you make this cake, please let me know how thick your batter ends up being! I'm curious to see if it's supposed to be thinner than normal like it was for me.