Of Basic Chocolate Cakes

One of my dad's friends just had a new baby, so my family trooped over to their place to see him. As a "baby-warming" gift, my mom decided that she wanted to give them chocolate cake. A strange choice since the baby can't have cake. Oh well, the mommy does love chocolate cake. Of course, I volunteered to make it. I wanted to try a new recipe, but my mom insisted on me using a recipe she had already tried, and whatever mom says goes. So, I had me a cake recipe, but I didn't have a recipe for frosting. With only a limited amount of butter and only cocoa powder on hand, I knew that I definitely wouldn't be doing a ganache. I did eventually found a perfectly chocolately frosting with the help of ehow.com and some simple experimentation.

Dark Chocolate Cake
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup brewed coffee (I actually used 3 teaspoons instant coffee and a cup of water), cold
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

The first step is to preheat the oven to 350F or 175C. Then mix the milk with the vinegar and set aside. In a bowl, sift together the all purpose flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk gently to mix. In a larger bowl, whisk together the eggs,  vegetable oil, coffee and vanilla extract. Add the milk and vinegar solution. Slowly add the dry ingredients. Mix until just incorporated. Finally, pour into two prepared 8-inch cake tins. Bake for 30 minutes. The cake will be springy when touched and an inserted toothpick will come out clean.

This chocolate cake was adapted from an allrecipes.com recipe.

Cocoa Powder Frosting
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup milk
2 cups confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt the butter. Then add the cocoa powder. Stir. Add the milk and stir until combined. Gradually add the confectioner's sugar. Finally, add the vanilla extract. If you want the frosting to be a bit more liquidy, add more.

Make sure that your cake has cooled completely before frosting it. After frosting the cake, remember to refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes or until the frosting has set a little. Now since this recipe yields two 8-inch cakes, you can either layer the cake one on top of the other with some of the frosting in between or just frost two different cakes. We went with the latter choice since two is better than one!