Thursday, June 15, 2017

Chocolate Cake! @LucyBurdette



LUCY BURDETTE: About a month ago, I did a talk and signing with my friends Barbara Ross and Liz Mugavero. Barb's husband was coming along, and it was his birthday. I thought he deserved a cake for being a good sport. I asked what kind he would like, he answered (quickly!): Chocolate with White icing. I've made plenty of chocolate cakes for my family, but never were they iced in white. Here was an opportunity to try a different chocolate cake along with the different icing. I found this recipe on Pinterest from a blog called "add a pinch". It was described as the best chocolate cake ever. 





I made adjustments for a lower sodium cake as you'll see below and also left out the suggested espresso powder, as I didn't have any on hand. It was very good, and tall, and probably a tad less rich than my usual. 

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, good quality
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (to reduce the sodium content in the cake, I used 1 teaspoon regular baking soda and 1 teaspoon no sodium baking soda)
2 teaspoons low-sodium baking powder
Scant 1/2 teaspoon salt

Two eggs
1/2 cup unflavored, preferably organic, vegetable oil like canola
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup milk
1 cup water, boiling

Preheat the oven to 350. Prepare the pans by buttering well, adding a circle of parchment paper and buttering that as well. Pulse the dry ingredients together in a food processor or KitchenAid mixer. Then add the eggs, oil, milk, and vanilla. Mix that in well with the dry ingredients. Boil the water and add it to the cake mixture, taking care not to splatter outside your machine!



Distribute the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 30 to 35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool the cakes for 10 minutes and then remove them from the pans and cool completely before frosting. You can make the cake a day ahead of time, just cover it well until ready to frost.



For the white icing: 




2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 to 4 cups confectioners sugar
Milk, as needed for thinning




Beat the butter until soft and thick. Beat the vanilla in. Gradually beat in the confectioner sugar until the frosting is the consistency and sweetness that you prefer.
Birthday boy





My family is so crazy about the chocolate frosting that I usually make, so I tried this cake with that icing too. I found the vanilla buttercream overly sweet, but the birthday boy and guests loved it. A good choice if you don't want a double chocolate cake. The super-serious chocolate eaters in my family still think this cake is the best ever though...




Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mysteries--find them wherever books are sold! Find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest--Instagram too...

7 comments:

  1. As a confirmed chocoholic. Always willing to try anything chocolate. Thank you, Lucy. Della at deepotter

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  2. As one of the people who ate this cake, I totally vouch for it! Thanks so much, Lucy for remembering Bill's birthday.

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    1. thanks Barb--it was a pleasure. I'm yearning for a piece right now...it might help my plot fall into place...

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  3. Chocolate! Yay!
    The white icing looks very pretty, but I think I'll stick with chocolate with my chocolate. You say the white is very sweet? Otherwise I might drizzle a bit of chocolate ganache over it for accent.
    What a good friend you are.

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    1. thanks Libby! it wasn't too sweet to eat--we ate every bite of that cake. And nice to change things up. But next time, I'll go back to chocolate unless someone requests the white.

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