Still eating cake...

...but this time it's chocolate.

We had a family cookout today, as my husband's uncle and aunt are visiting from waaay out of town. It happens to also be my sister-in-law's birthday, so I called her up to see what kind of cake she wanted...

T: "Chocolate, of course!"
Me: "Good. What kind of frosting?"
T: "Well...maybe we should have vanilla, so it's not too much chocolate for people."
Me: "Listen, it's YOUR birthday. YOU get to choose what YOU want."
T: "Okay, then chocolate frosting!"

Fabulous. I broke out my top-secret, for-special-occasions chocolate cake recipe.

Okay, you got me. It's not really a top-secret recipe. In fact, if you have a container of Hershey's baking cocoa, you have the basic recipe: it's the "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake recipe on the back. Despite its name, I thought it wasn't qute perfect, and decided to mess with it a bit, so my version DOES have a secret ingredient.

The original recipe calls for adding a cup of boiling water to the batter at the end, just before baking. I decided, after making the cake a couple of times, that something was missing. I added about a tablespoon (plus) of instant coffee to the boiling water, stirred it until the granules had dissolved, then added it to the batter.

Holy fabulous cake, Batman. You can't taste the coffee at all; it just adds an amazing depth and richness to the chocolate. The cake was good before, but the coffee makes it come pretty darn close to the "perfect" in its name.

The following picture isn't beautifully composed - at least I put the cake on one of Gramma Betty's plates - but I think you can see how dark, rich and moist the cake is. It's frosted with the companion Perfectly Chocolate Frosting, which is likewise on the Hershey's cocoa container. My next step in perfecting this recipe is to make the frosting a little less sweet, but it tastes good as-is.



Enjoy.

NOTES:

You can use the pan preparation method I described in the yellow cake recipe of greasing the pan, putting parchment or waxed paper circles in the pans, greasing the circles, then flouring the whole shebang.

When I make chocolate cake, I "flour" the pans with cocoa powder. No white streaks on the outside of the baked cake!

This recipe makes quite a bit of batter. My 9" cake pans are relatively shallow, and the cake was rising up over the top of the edges! I'll be buying some deeper pans sometime soon.

Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup baking cocoa (preferably Hershey's)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup boiling water
1 tablespoon instant coffee or instant espresso

Heat oven to 350˚F. Grease and flour two 9" round cake pans (see notes).
Combine dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder) in large bowl.
Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed for two minutes.
Add instant coffee/espresso to boiling water, and stir to dissolve. Stir hot mixture into the rest of the batter; batter will be quite thin. Pour into pans.

Bake 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Frosting.

Easily serves 12.