Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake
Everyone should have one chocolate cake they can make without looking — the one for birthdays, bad days, and 'we need cake' days. This is mine, and it's almost embarrassingly easy for how good it is: one bowl, a whisk, no mixer.
The unexpected ingredient is a cup of hot coffee stirred in at the end. It doesn't make the cake taste like coffee — it deepens the chocolate into something dark and grown-up, and it makes the batter thin, which is exactly right. A thin batter here bakes into an impossibly moist crumb.
Let the layers cool completely before frosting, or the fudge frosting will slide right off in a delicious but tragic mess. If you're impatient like me, the freezer for twenty minutes is a perfectly acceptable shortcut.
Mia's tips
- •The batter is meant to be thin — that's what makes the cake so moist.
- •Hot coffee deepens the chocolate; it won't taste like coffee, promise.
- •Cool the cake fully before frosting so the frosting doesn't melt.
Recipe
Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake
A deep, moist, one-bowl chocolate cake under a glossy fudge frosting — the birthday cake you'll make from memory.
Ingredients
Cake
Fudge frosting
Instructions
- 1Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease and line two 9-inch round pans.
- 2Whisk all the dry cake ingredients in a large bowl. Add the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla and whisk smooth.
- 3Stir in the hot coffee — the batter will be thin. Divide between the pans.
- 4Bake 30–34 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes, then turn out and cool completely.
- 5For the frosting, beat the butter, then beat in the powdered sugar, cocoa and milk until glossy and spreadable.
- 6Frost between the layers and over the top. Slice and serve.
Nutrition (per serving, estimated)
