Operation Wedding Cake: The Dark Chocolate Cake | Recipe

I've never made a dark chocolate cake before. I've made Death By Chocolate cupcakes, but nothing labeled 'dark chocolate'.
This kind of scared me. All the dark chocolate cakes either have coffee, espresso, or fancy ingredients that seemed like a lot of hassle to make for the chance of it not coming out good.

For starters. I'm not a huge cake-lover. Strawberry, and vanilla are the only good cakes-oh! And funfetti! A cupcake now and again, sure, those Starbucks cake pops always catch my eyes. But I don't ever remember craving cake, ever. Pie is a different story.

Chocolate cake is definitely not on the list for me, and when you're trying a new cake recipe... somebody has to test it.
Which is where Mom and Pappap come in! Mom isn't a chocolate person, or a chocolate cake person let alone dark chocolate AND she liked it!! She thinks it's very good. Pappap agrees, he thought is could use more icing though. But that's a personal preference thing, the cake was the main subject.
And, my brother approved!





I seemed to have lacked on taking a picture but I can assure you that it smells like brownies, and it definitely looks like a chocolate cake, and it was fairly easy to make. Plus, no fancy ingredients. Completely coffeeless.
The batter is very thin though, fair warning. I almost chucked it because it didn't resemble any cake-batter I ever encountered, but it does turn out to be very moist and fluffy.
Don't let the vaking fairies tell you otherwise! Fight those fairies! (Anyone?!?! No? Okay...)

Side note: The recipe calls for Dutch/Dark Chocolate cocoa powder. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe Nestle Tollhouse is Dutch processed, but it's the one I used, and it turned out just fine.





This recipe is from Food.com by Marg (CaymanDesigns)

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Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 ³⁄₄ cups flour
• ³⁄₄ cup baking cocoa (dutch process or dark cocoa preferably)
• 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
• ³⁄₄-1 cup boiling water (see note below)

Side note #2: I used a little less than 3/4c of the water.

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F.
2. Grease and flour two 9 inch round baking pans or one 13x9 inch pan.
3. In large mixer bowl, stir together dry ingredients.
4. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla; beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.
5. Stir in boiling water by hand (batter will be thin). [[Side note #3, because of the raw eggs, I added in the hot water slowly while mixing to temper the batter so the eggs wouldn't cook and get all gross in the cake.]] NOTE: I have tried it with 1/2 cup, 2/3 cup and 3/4 cup boiling water and we prefer it with less than 1 cup water. I usually use between 2/3 & 3/4 cups. The cake is still very moist but it doesn't seem to "fall" as much as it cools. This might have to do with our high humidity or brand of flour or other factors so I don't know if it will work for everyone.
6. Pour into prepared pan.
7. Bake 30 to 35 minutes for round 9-inch pans, 35 to 40 minutes for rectangular pan or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. (Do not use 8-inch pans or the batter will overflow.).
8. Because they have a tendency to overflow if you fill them more than 2/3 full, I usually get about 27-28 cupcakes per batch. Bake for approximately 18-20 minutes.
9.  Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan to wire racks.