my go to cake

I've been taking pictures of my food long before the creation of Instagram. I've always been fascinated with photography & food alike. One of the main things on my bucket list is to create a food blog, so I figured why not start now rather than later? Sure, I'm not as experienced as others and I surely can't write my own recipes from scratch (yet) but I'll learn. I'm a sweet tooth and a firm believer that chocolate deserves it's own food group, so I thought it would be appropriate to start with my preferred made-from-scratch cake recipe.

This cake is literally perfect, they weren't kidding. It's moist and so rich in all the right ways.

Cake Recipe

• 2 cups sugar
• 1-3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cups Hershey's cocoa 
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

Once you have all the ingredients ready to go, preheat your oven to 350°F and grease two 9-inch round cake pans. Or refer below for other varieties.

VARIATIONS:
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.

BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.
 

 Mix the dry ingredients together (sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt) in a large bowl.

Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. (I use olive oil instead of vegetable, it's a little healthier and you can't even tell the difference)

Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes & stir in boiling water. (Don't worry that the batter is extremely runny, it's supposed to be) Pour batter into the pans.

Bake 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes and then remove from the pans to cool completely on a wire rack (I didn't own any at the time...okay I still don't, but I made do with cookie sheets)

What good is cake without frosting? Especially one of the homemade variety? Exactly! While the cake is cooling, whip up a batch of this amazingly simple chocolate frosting.

Frosting Recipe

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
• 2/3 cup Hershey's cocoa
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency.
Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla.

Yield: approximately 2 cups

Now that the cakes are cool, you can start frosting! I'll admit, it's not my strong suit but it could be worse

I made this cake for my boyfriend's birthday in July, even our cat Baloo wanted some! (Okay, he wanted the sparkler candles but still this cake was quite a hit)