THE PERFECT CHOCOLATE CAKE

I had been looking for the perfect chocolate cake recipe for years without much luck, until I finally came across this. Even before I made it I got the feeling that this could be the one. When I took my first bite, it was confirmed… my search was finally over, I had found my perfect chocolate cake…and this my friends is it! It is a cake so light, moist and gloriously dark in color and flavor, making it the most sexy chocolate cake I ever tasted. So perfectly beautiful is this cake on its own that it does not even need any tarting up in the form of icing! (which was an important factor as I tend to veer away from home baked cakes with rich icings) It is a stunning black beauty, looking sinfully dark and gorgeous, while it silently beckons you to come hither and devour it.

The whole cake uses half a cup of oil, which I think is pretty low in fat for such a divine tasting cake. Just make sure you use good cocoa powder and you are sure to have a hit on your hands.  I used Hershy’s special dark chocolate and got great results. Use any Dutch or Belgian cocoa powder and you should be in cake heaven. I also love the fact that it is so unfussy in its ingredients that most home cooks would have have them in their pantry and could whip this up whenever the mood strikes.

The recipe calls for a cup of sour milk. Now you can’t go around buying sour milk, but can make it in a jiffy by first microwaving for 20 seconds a cup of milk and bringing it down to room temperature, and then adding a tablespoon of white vinegar. Wait a minute or so and behold, you have sour milk which has curdled and can go on with making your cake.

Also into this cake goes a cup of strong coffee. The cake does not taste of coffee at all and the coffee in fact makes the chocolate taste stronger. So don’t think kids will not eat it as they may taste or smell coffee. I found the coffee taste and smell completely undetectable. I also made sure the coffee had cooled to almost room temperature before I used it in the cake.

I stumbled across this amazing recipe on the lovely food52 blog.

THE PERFECT CHOCOLATE CAKE

2
cups sugar

            1 3/4
cup all-purpose flour

            3/4
cups dutch process cocoa powder, plus more for dusting

            1/2
teaspoon salt

            1
teaspoon baking powder

            2
teaspoons baking soda

            1
cup sour milk

            1
cup freshly brewed strong black coffee

            1/2
cup vegetable oil

            2
eggs

            1
teaspoon vanilla extract or paste

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter a bundt pan and dust the inside with cocoa powder, set aside.
2. Sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl. Set aside.
3. In a mixer on low add the milk, coffee, vegetable oil, eggs and vanilla one at a time. mix until everything is incorporated. Then, with the mixer still on low speed, slowly add in the dry ingredients. Once all of the flour mixture is added, mix the batter for a full four minutes on medium speed.

Then, pour the batter into the bundt pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool to room temperature on a wire rack. Then, dust with icing sugar and serve.