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My Favorite Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake absolutely has to be two things: dark and moist. A dry chocolate cake hits you in the back of the throat with its coarse crumbs, like a tickly cough. To make sure it is sticky and dense I use buttermilk. This might seem a curious ingredient to include in a chocolate cake, but it is completely necessary to guarantee a moist and tender crumb. Adding coffee to chocolate cakes really brings out the flavor in the cocoa, and you can barely taste it. If you detest coffee or are baking for children, you can use boiling water instead in any of the chocolate cake recipes.

Ingredients

Makes 1 (8-inch) cake

Butter, for greasing
125g (1 cup) plain flour
225g (about 1 cup) superfine sugar
50g (1/2 cup) cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
125ml (1/2 cup) buttermilk (cultured), or 110ml (1/2 cup) milk plus 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
60g (4 1/4 tbsp) butter, melted
1 egg
125ml (1/2 cup) coffee (or water)

Special Equipment

A 20cm (8-inch) tin
  1. Step 1

    预热烤箱至180°C / 160°C风扇/气体°F 4/350 then grease a cake tin and line it with baking parchment. Put the plain flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into a large bowl. Whisk to combine.

    Step 2

    If you don’t have buttermilk, pour the milk into a large jug and add the lemon juice. Leave to stand for five minutes until thickened.

    Step 3

    Whisk the buttermilk/acidified milk into the melted butter and egg followed by the coffee or water.

    Step 4

    Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients, whisking until a smooth batter has formed. It will be very runny, and if you are making more than one layer, the best way to divide it between the tins is to transfer the batter to a large jug. You can then use either the markings on the jug to measure the amount going into each tin, or put a tin on the scales and measure by weight. It is important to do this so that the layers are the same height and cook at the same rate.

    Step 5

    Bake for 25–30 minutes until risen and a skewer inserted comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for ten minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.

FromTwist: Creative Ideas to Reinvent Your Baking, © 2017 by Martha Collison. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins. Buy the full book fromHarperCollinsor fromAmazon.
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  • Absolutely delicious chocolate cake. Needs to be doubled for a two layer cake. Cream cheese frosting is perfect on top.

    • marstokyo

    • Baltimore MD

    • 9/10/2020

  • To Carline.G.Cohen 51336, sugar is heavier than flour that is why 225 g. Sugar and 125 g. Flour can have the same volume.

    • mmvixon

    • Victoria BC

    • 8/18/2018

  • I really loved this cake for making cake pops, so so good! I actually omitted the egg and it still tasted just lovely. Great recipe! Would make this one again

    • Anonymous

    • California

    • 1/14/2018

  • I have not tasted this cake yet, but I just made it and here are my comments: it only makes a small cake (about 3 cups in volume), so if you do pour it into two 9" pans, as I did, you will only have two thin pancakes. I had to make a whole second cake for it not to look like a pancake, so now I will have a 4 layer cake. Also, the metric and imperial measurements don't make sense: how can 125g = 1 C, and 225g also equal "about 1 cup"? I thought 1 cup = 250 g! The recipe says the batter will be very runny. It was not: I had to add quite a bit more buttermilk to get it runny.

    • caroline.g.cohen5133

    • 11/9/2017

  • Yes!!!! This article is too simple that everybody can learn and make cake after reading this article. Thanks!!! www.cakengifts.in/cake-delivery-in-saket-delhi www.cakengifts.in/cake-delivery-in-malviya-nagar-delhi www.cakengifts.in/cake-delivery-in-pitampura-delhi www.cakengifts.in/cake-delivery-in-mayur-vihar-phase1-delhi

    • cakengiftsDelhi

    • Delhi

    • 9/20/2017

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