The Best Chocolate Cake

Before we begin, I need to issue a disclaimer:  this chocolate cake will change your life.  Seriously.  Overall, I’m not a huge fan of chocolate cake because it always seems to be too dry and lack flavor.  This cake is the exception.  The credit goes to a queen in the kitchen – Ina Garten.  Her recipe for Beatty’s Chocolate Cake is the bomb.

Ingredients

Butter, for greasing the pans if you’re making cake (cupcakes liners if you’re making cupcakes 🙂 )
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup buttermilk – if you don’t have buttermilk on hand, do 1 Tbsp. white vingar in a 1 cup measuring cup, then pour in heavy cream or whole milk until it reaches the 1 cup mark and let it sit for 5 minutes.  Give it a stir, then add it to the batter.
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 extra large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee – don’t use a flavored coffee unless you want that flavor in your cake 🙂

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350*F.  Butter and flour two 8-inch x 2-inch round cake pans, or line two muffin tins with cupcake liners.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined.  In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla.  With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry.  With the mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula.  Sometimes I find it’s easier to stir the coffee in by hand.  Pour the batter into the prepared pans.  Bake the cakes for 35-40 minutes or cupcakes for 18-20 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.  Cool the cakes in the pan for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.  Let the cupcakes cool for ten minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Frost your cake or cupcakes as desired, or just eat them plain.  They are THAT good!  Here are the cupcakes with chocolate fudge frosting that I made for my brother’s birthday last year.  Yum.

 

 

Monday Miscellany: Happy Last Day of March!

When you start the process of moving out of the home you grew up in you kind of lose track of everything else in your life (hello, last two weeks of my life). 🙂 But today I am back and just wanted to share a few things I’ve found online in the last few weeks in between stripping wallpaper and pinning ideas for my first home.

Cheddar Jalapeño Chicken Burgers with Guacamole

I’ve never been much of a burger girl, but for some reason in the last year of my life I’ve been craving them like never before.  Enter this recipe from What’s Gaby Cooking.  Be still my heart.  I’m a huge fan of non-beef burgers, and adding guacamole makes anything look delicious.  I can’t wait to try this one out!

Photo courtesy of whatsgabycooking.com

This Cake

Spied on Pinterest.  It may be the loveliest wedding cake I’ve ever seen.

Photo courtesy of eatingyummy.com via Pinterest

Sour Cream Espresso Brownies with Salted Caramels

So many of my favorite things put together.  A friend of mine shared this recipe with me, and I can’t wait to make them sometime!

Photo courtesy of bakeaholicmama.com

Happy Monday, everyone!

 

Dairy-Free Pound Cake

Yesterday was my baby sister’s birthday – she’s TWENTY now!  I can hardly believe it; it seems like she was born yesterday.  Anyway, much to my sister’s dismay, her body doesn’t handle dairy very well.  Her birthday cake request?  Dairy-free pound cake.  Our dad found this recipe and it was a winner!

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups sugar
2 cups dairy-free margarine, softened (I used Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks)
3/4 cup unsweetened plain almond milk
6 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 325*F.  Place flour, sugar, margarine, almond milk, eggs, and vanilla (in that order) in the bowl of a heavy duty electric stand mixer.  Beat at low speed for 1 minute, stopping to scrape down the sides.  Beat at medium speed for 2 minutes.

Pour into a greased and floured 10 inch (16 cup) tube pan (I used a beautiful bundt pan), and smooth.  I suggest placing the pan on a cookie sheet in case it bakes over like mine did. 🙂  Bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, or until a long wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean – mine took about 2 hours.  Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for about 10 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan to the wire rack and cool completely.  If you want the best flavor, make this cake 24 hours before you’re going to serve it.  I don’t know why, but it really develops if you let it sit!

You can top it with ice cream, strawberries, hot fudge, whatever you like.  It’s just so good.

Enjoy!