Recipe: Devil's Food Cake
Summary: Another recipe from another trusted baking friend... Kathleen Pearson. It's so good, it's bad!
Ingredients
- 1¾ cup boiling water
- 6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2½ sticks butter, softened
- 1¾ cup packed brown sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
Frosting
- 2 ½ sticks plus 2 tablespoons butter, softened
- 4 ½ cups powdered sugar 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (For really dark frosting, use part Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa, about 4 tablespoons)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°. Line two 9-inch round cake pans with circles of wax paper or baking parchment. (KITK note_ Don’t skip this step. This cake is so moist, the standard grease and flour process will not yield favorable results. Think of dumping warm fudge onto a cake plate. See photograph.)
- Pour the boiling water over the chocolate. Add cocoa and stir until mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool.
- Cream the butter and brown sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in vanilla.
- Add the dry ingredients and half of the chocolate mixture. Beat on low to combine, then on high for 1 ½ minutes.
- Add the remaining chocolate mixture and beat on low until mixed.
- Pour batter into pans and bake 30—40 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the middle comes out completely clean.
- Cool for 10-15 minutes; remove from pans. Wrap in double layers of plastic wrap while still warm and freeze. Double recipe makes two 10” layers, plus two 8” layers. Never fill more than 2/3 full.
- For Frosting_ Cream butter with electric mixer.
- Whisk together sugar and cocoa. Beat one-third of the sugar/cocoa mixture into the butter. Mix in vanilla.
- Add the rest of the sugar/cocoa mixture alternately with milk and beat until frosting is smooth.
- When cake is frozen solid, frost between the two layers and spread a thin layer over the whole cake.
- Freeze again for about 20 minutes. Frost again. Repeat if desired. (Frost the last time on the day you plan to serve the cake and let it stand at room temperature to thaw.)
- Another KITK note_ Toasted, chopped pecans between the layers, top and sides of cake. Super addition! [caption id="attachment_411" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Extra "Bad" with toasted pecans!"][/caption][caption id="attachment_404" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="This is what happens when you don't use parchment paper."][/caption]
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