Perfect Chocolate Cake

I picked out this Perfect Chocolate Cake recipe from Southern Living: 40 Years of Our Best Recipes. I made this cake for two friends birthdays. (Their birthdays are literally days apart.... perfect for a joint celebration.) For this very birthday extravagana, we decided to have an awesome scavenger hunt. The list included 50 items of various point values and the time limit was an hour and a half. There was 6 of us other myself playing the hunt and it was glorious fun.




Recipe:

The Cake

1 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups boiling water

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Whipped Cream Filling
Perfect Chocolate Frosting

1. Combine cocoa and water; stir until smooth. Set aside.
2. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer about 2 minutes or until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating 5 to 7 minutes. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until yellow disappears.
3. Combine flour and next 3 ingredients; add to butter mixture alternatively with cocoa mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Do not overbeat.
4. Pour batter into 3 greased and floured 9 inch round cakepans. Bake at 350 F for 22 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; remove from pans, and cool completely on wire racks.
5. Spread Whipped Cream Filling between layers; spread Perfect Chocolate Frosting on top and sides of cake. Chill.

Whipped Cream Filling

1 cup whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup sifted powdered sugar

1. Beat whipping cream and vanilla until fomay; Gradually add powdered sugar, beating until soft peaks form. Cover and chill.

Perfect Chocolate Frosting

1 cup semisweet chocolate morsels
1/2 cup half and half
3/4 cup butter or margarine
2 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar

1. Combine first 3 ingredients in a medium saucepan; cook over medium heat, stirring until chocolate melts. Remove from heat; add powdered sugar, mixing well.
2. Place saucepan in a large bowl of ice. Beat at low speed with an electric mixer until frosting holds its shape and loses its gloss. Add a few drops of half and half if needed to make a good spreading consistency.

Overall, this recipe gets 4.70 out of 5 stars. This recipe surprised me in a lot of ways. Everyone loved it. I guess this surprised me in some ways. It was unexpected. I make a lot of cakes and this one got more positive response than others. The cake was moist and tender. This was my first cake that I have ever made that is three layers and it was to do this than I originally expected. I served the cake warm. However, I thought it tasted better after being cooled in the refrigerator. The frosting itself was delish. The buttercream frosting was creamy and succulent. Melt in your mouth good. The middle whipped cream filling was excellent as well. People wanted more. I will definitely make this cake again. My next goal though is to work on my cake decorating skills. My cakes presentations are still lacking and the icing jobs are still sloppy. I waited this time to ice the cake which helped lessen the "drippiness" of the icing. However, next time I need to work on smoothing out the icing more and maybe slicing some strawberries on the top to make it look prettier. Enjoy this cake!