The best chocolate cake
This is the ultimate recipe for a chocolate cake. The cake itself is very soft and moist and with some dark chocolate buttercream, it is a chocolate lover's dream. Recipe Author: Madhushree
Ingredients
For the chocolate cakeIn a
- 1 ½ cups Maida or all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups Caster sugar
- ¾ cup cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 ½ tsp Baking soda
- 1 tsp Salt
- ¼ cup Any vegetable oil
- ¾ cup yogurt or dahi
- 2 nos Eggs
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla essence
- ¾ cup hot water
For Chocolate buttercream
- 1 cup Unsalted Butter in room temperature
- 100 gms dark chocolate chopped into small pieces
- 1 cup good quality cocoa powder
- 3 cups Icing Sugar
- 2 tbsp whipping cream optional, but you could also use regular cream
Instructions
Baking the cake
- In a large mixing bowl, take all the dry ingredients- flour, sugar, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, baking soda. Mix well and make sure everything is combined.
- In another mixing bowl, whisk the eggs with vegetable oil, yogurt and vanilla essence. When thoroughly combined, very gently, pour the hot water through the side of the bowl and continue whisking. It will become frothy and rise.
- Now make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it. using a spatula, gently fold everything together. If you want to use an electric mixer, use the lowest speed to combine everything thoroughly. The batter is quite a runny batter.
- Take two 7 inch cake tins. Line them with butter paper or grease and dust them with flour. Pour the batter evenly in both the cake tins.
- Plate in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees c for about 30 minutes. Check with a skewer if the cake is done or not. The skewer should come out clean when pricked in the centre of the cake.
- Once the cakes are done, take them out and let them cool down for about 10 to 15 minutes. Then take the cakes out of the cake tin and place them on a wire rack to cool down completely.
Making the buttercream frosting
- In a glass bowl or microwave-safe bowl, place the chopped dark chocolate crumbs and melt them. In a microwave, you need to do in medium power in intervals of 20 seconds till the chocolate melts. Stir the chocolate and keep it aside.
- In a mixing bowl, take the butter and whisk. Add the chocolate and incorporate it thoroughly.
- Then using a sift, add the cocoa powder and then whisk and mix everything. Finally, add vanilla essence and sift in the icing sugar in batches and whisk to incorporate. Add the cream if it is becoming too thick and then add the rest of the icing sugar. (Sifting the icing sugar and adding is absolutely essential)
- Transfer the frosting to a piping bag and keep it aside.
Final Assembly
- Either you can decide to make this is two-layer cake or three-layer, depending on that, slice your cakes. In case you want a two-layer cake, then only cut off the round tops of the cakes.
- For assembling the cake, place one slice of the cake on a turntable. Then add dollops of frosting in the centre and then using an icing knife or spatula, spread the frosting.
- Place the other half of the cake on top of the frosting. Then cover the sides and then the top with frosting and keep in the refrigerator.
- After 20 minutes, take the cake out and give another coat of frosting and do any decoration or design if you want to before serving.