Chocolate snack cake

Sometimes, all you need is chocolate.  At least, all you want is chocolate!  Once again, it's time to celebrate chocolate - one of my greatest loves - in this month of February and ahead of Valentine's day in a few days.  

So for no more necessary reason beyond my love of chocolate and for making, eating, and sharing chocolate cake, I'd like to present this simple chocolate snack cake that's good for any occasion or for just any ordinary day.

I have certainly baked many a chocolate cake and generally enjoy them all.  For an excuse to keep making chocolate cake throughout the year(s), I'm always happy to try a new twist.  In this case, I was captivated (and immediately motivated) by Now, Forager's chocolate sprinkle snack cake; her photographer is stunning and one look at her gorgeous cake had me itching to make one of my own!  It's simple, classic and just a happy cake to bake - and eat - any time of year. 

This cake is familiar in its lineup of ingredients - cocoa powder and coffee for chocolate flavor, sour cream and oil for moisture.  An interesting note on the frosting - this dark chocolate frosting has a relatively small amount of powdered sugar in it relative to most buttercream frosting recipes.  I actually worried it might be a bit too little but it works, which opened my eyes to new possibilities.  The smaller amount of powdered sugar makes for a creamier, silkier frosting where you can really taste the chocolate.  That is definitely a good thing. 

Sprinkles are optional, or maybe not.  I know that colorful sprinkles always makes me smile - the hard part is deciding which sprinkles to use!  My family and I are also partial to chocolate sprinkles on our chocolate cake.  But whether you like it plain or bespeckled with sprinkle confetti, you won't regret this chocolate interlude!

Ice cream tacos and life in June

June is always a busy month around here, with my son's birthday, Father's Day, and the buzz and activities surrounding the end of the school year falling on this special month.  This year, my son turned 14...

...and he graduated from middle school!

These last 3 years have flown by!  You realize time will go fast going in but it still surprises you.  And it's incredible how much change and growth has taken place during that time.  The kids have worked hard and my husband and I are so particularly proud of our kiddo, who is rapidly growing up before our eyes!

So we've been pretty busy celebrating around here!  We don't want to stop but exhaustion is starting to seep in and we'll take the summer break as a time to chill and relax before gearing up for High School!  There's plenty of excitement (and hopefully, celebrations) on the horizon.

And speaking of celebrations, I sit here typing on the first day of summer.  Rain is coming down (yet again) but sunshine is expected this afternoon and the entire weekend.  It makes me think of upcoming July 4th and what kind of treats we might want to have then.  When it's summertime, I always think ice cream so I'm recommending a batch of ice cream tacos! 

I recently made these for Memorial Day weekend and they went down a treat.  The homemade shells (which are like ice cream cones in the shape of taco shells) can be filled with any flavor ice cream you like; I went with vanilla chocolate chip as well as pistachio ice cream.  Topped with some homemade chocolate magic shell and sprinkled with sprinkles or nuts, they are fun to look at and delicious to eat.  The ice cream tacos are festive and celebratory, and I'm all for celebrating as much as possible (particularly, with ice cream)!

Chocolate Heaven in a cupcake

I realize it's not exactly a novelty for me to be here, ranting and raving about chocolate cake.  I mean, it was just a few months ago when I was swooning over those amazing ultimate chocolate cupcakes.  I can only assure you that I'm always sincere!

While I do like to "play the field" when it comes to chocolate cakes/cupcakes (and chocolate desserts in general), I have a lot of room in my heart to love a lot of recipes!  This gets proven again and again as I eat and discover all the wonderful chocolate cake renditions out there.  It's all about diversity and mixing things up.

So today, let me add another chocolate cupcake love affair to my list.  In a roundabout way, these cupcakes come by way of Savannah, Georgia.  You see...my family and I went to Charleston, S.C., recently on vacation.  During that trip, we drove to Savannah one day.  Aside from wanting to see the lovely city, I really wanted to visit Back in the Day Bakery.  I am so happy we made the pilgrimage (particularly as I learned that they would be closed the following week for summer vacation)!  The place was as charming as I expected and the people might well have been sweeter than the treats.

While we were there, we tasted these mind-blowing Chocolate Heaven cupcakes.  We tried one and went right back for another!  They were amazingly moist, with a super fluffy, tender crumb.  The cupcakes packed some wonderful chocolate flavor and somehow the cap of chocolate sprinkles on top of the creamy frosting was just right. I fell hard for these chocolate cupcakes.

The amazing Chocolate Heaven cupcake at Back in the Day Bakery in Savannah, Georgia

We didn't make it to the bakery that day until early afternoon.  By then, and given the fact that August is a slow month for Savannah, there wasn't a ton to choose from and I can only say that I'm so grateful there were still some of these chocolate cupcakes in the case!  Chocolate Heaven, indeed!  I wish we'd had time and space to try more of their treats but we'd just eaten lunch in Hilton Head, had plans to visit Leopold's next for ice cream, and had dinner reservations.  To say that I'd want to go back to Savannah just to have more food from Back in the Day Bakery is not an exaggeration. Hopefully, someday...

In the meantime, you know what I love to do...try to recreate something wonderful I ate on vacation, back home!  Since one of the lovely women working at the bakery told me these cupcakes were a relatively new addition, I didn't have high hopes of finding the recipe...until I looked and realized there is a Chocolate Heaven cake recipe in the first cookbook!!  Bingo!  I realized this would take me pretty close to what we enjoyed in Savannah so I took the cake recipe, reduced it down from a 3-layer cake, and turned out some cupcakes!

So how did my homemade version compare to the ones at the bakery?  The good news is they taste very much alike.  I realized that to make a good old-fashioned bake, it takes good-quality ingredients, time and love in the way of patience in the process.  Here specifically, I also think sour cream is one of the "secrets" as well as really good chocolate in the form of Scharffen Berger, and coffee.  

Not surprisingly, the ones at the bakery were superior.  While the home version were moist, the bakery cupcake was fluffier, with more of an open crumb.  My cupcakes baked up with slightly rounded tops while the bakery's were flat, making a great base for an even and generous layer of frosting.  I skimped in comparison when it came to frosting on my cupcakes but for all that, these cupcakes still transport you to heaven for a few moments while you're devouring them.  I would surely love to eat them again and again!

Don't skip the chocolate sprinkles on top of these cupcakes because for some reason, they are just so right here!  They somehow reinforce the whole chocolate experience. 

Simple chocolate party cake

It's been a busy couple of weeks, filled with celebrations and a vacation. I recently celebrated a big birthday and we just got back from a wonderful trip to Charleston, South Carolina.  

Before all that, I happened to be looking at some beautiful bakes from Style Sweet CA on Instagram and then spotted a simple chocolate cake on the site that I thought would be fun to make with my son.  It reminded me of the Texas sheet cake we made together last summer and it, in fact, is that with a different type of chocolate frosting on top.  

Instead of making a sheet cake, we divided the cake recipe in half and made a single-layer 8-inch cake (I made just 1/3 the recipe for the frosting and it was more than enough).  I decided to tag this as a "simple chocolate party cake" instead of "easy chocolate sheet cake" as the original is called since I baked it in the round, which I think is a bit more formal looking.  If you bake it in sheet cake form, it's great to slice into small squares or rectangle servings for a crowd. 

The chocolate icing - given the high ratio of confectioners' sugar in it - is the kind that forms a bit of a dry crust on the surface.  It's not what I'd call "fudgy" (which I think of as a smoother, more creamy, chewy texture like this) so instead of calling it a fudge frosting recipe as I found it, I'd say it's more a classic American-style chocolate frosting/icing on this cake.

My son and I had fun in the kitchen preparing this cake.  It's nice to sneak a few moments together doing something simple like baking or cooking.  And the final reward of having a homemade cake can't be beat.  As with all things homemade with care, it seems to taste all the better.

His shirt says "Never Skip Cake" (not true, but would be a good line)

Incidentally, I realized that we made this cake just a couple of days before my birthday (okay...not so coincidental...I may have planned it that way!) so I can say my son helped make me a birthday cake this year!  If I sound desperate, sometimes I am.  

Chocolate cake for the weekend

I'm calling this a "chocolate cake for the weekend" because that's just what it was.  I made it last Friday going into the weekend.  It's always nice to kick off the weekend with a cake!  On a practical level, it was partly an effort to clean out the fridge and use up some extra ingredients.  On another level, it was just part of the ongoing effort to satisfy my insatiable chocolate cravings.

After making a few loaves of banana bread and churning a batch of ice cream, I had extra whole milk yogurt and heavy cream on hand so I decided to use those things to make this cake.  I'm actually revisiting a recipe I've made before, in a different form. In fact, my very first post featured this in cupcake form.  I've also made it as a single-layer cake years ago.  This time, it comes in the form of a double-layer 6-inch cake.

When we had afternoon tea at Fortnum & Mason in London back in April, I tasted a delicious slice of chocolate ganache cake...maybe that put the idea in my head.  But to be honest, I think about chocolate and things like chocolate cake and ganache all the time.  It's amazing how much I love chocolate, and it's a love that goes way back for as long as I can remember.

But back to this little cake...make it for the chocolate lover in your life because it is all about the deep flavor of chocolate (a recurring theme here).  Thanks to yogurt and oil rather than butter in the batter, the cake is wonderfully moist and tender.  It gets a deep chocolate flavor from not only cocoa and chocolate but also freshly brewed coffee.  The chocolate ganache frosting and filling is rich and creamy, basically a chocolate-lover's delight.  This cake made this chocoholic very happy and I can say that I definitely put my leftover yogurt and heavy cream to very good use!

It's strawberry season and I've been diligently stocking up on strawberries and raspberries as much as possible.  While my fridge is overflowing with it and I'm perfectly happy snacking on it and having it with some yogurt for breakfast, I'm always still craving a little chocolate!  And in my humble opinion, the best way to eat berries just might be...with a slice of chocolate cake!  Who's with me?

Chocolate peppermint patty cake

When I think of Christmas flavors, classics like peppermint inevitably come to mind.  One of my favorite store-bought treats is this peppermint bark and we get at least one tin during the season to enjoy at home alongside our homemade goodies.  I've thought about attempting a homemade version but honestly, I have a feeling the real thing would be hard to beat (never mind all the issues with tempering or needing to refrigerate a homemade version - what do they do to the candy cane bits to prevent it from melting?).

So I settled for making a little peppermint cake.  Aside from the bark, I was inspired by the peppermint brownies I made last year that turned out really well.  My son was quick to remind me that I had to make those as well.  I've since accomplished that but beforehand, I thought I'd try something new.  

I scaled this cake down from a recipe in Chocolate Cakes, a book a chocoholic like myself feels she has to have.  There are literally chopped peppermint patties in the cake itself.  It's the kind of "crazy" thing we find ourselves doing during the holidays.  

If, like me, you fear the cake might be cloying, I'm happy to report that it is not.  The proportions work (I did go light on the peppermint patties) and it's almost-surprisingly not too sweet.  I liked this cake even more than I thought I would; it's rather addictive, actually.  That could well be explained by the bittersweet chocolate ganache since I rarely dislike anything with ganache but the cake itself is moist and chewy and the whole effect is somewhat like a peppermint brownie truffle!

Now pardon my wobbly piping job on this cake.  It's the best I can do, quite frankly.  I just thought I'd take the excess ganache I had and pipe a pretty border - it is the holidays, after all!  And inspired by the delicious peppermint bark we're enjoying right now, that border created the perfect little center for me to nestle some festive peppermint bark pieces inside.  The whole thing tasted incredibly harmonious - a little crunch of the bark to go with the creamy chewiness of the cake.  This is a terrific chocolate fix for the holidays!

Rather like a peppermint brownie truffle in cake form

Hershey's (vs. Beatty's) chocolate cake

I'll begin this post by saying that I love chocolate.  I may have mentioned it once - or a million times - already.  So obviously, I love chocolate cake.  Years ago (before starting this blog), I discovered what I consider the ultimate classic chocolate layer cake: Beatty's chocolate cake, or what I also think of as "Ina's cake" because it was brought to us by Ina Garten.  I have made that cake many times.  My extended family loves it - even those who are not big cake or dessert lovers.  I could very happily just eat that cake all by itself (it is so moist and chocolaty) but the chocolate buttercream that goes with it is an ideal pairing.  I'm not a big fan of buttercream frosting usually but it just works perfectly with that cake, and I've tried other pairings.

Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake

Aside from Beatty's/Ina's cake, I have also heard plenty of raves about Hershey's chocolate cake. Many people say that is the ultimate chocolate layer cake (this testimonial, for example) and I've long wanted to compare the two but never wanted to take on the opportunity cost.  Apologies to Hershey's but I've been reluctant to try their recipe because I was pretty sure Beatty's cake would be the better version.  

Compare the ingredient list between the two cakes and Beatty's just seems to be the evolved - dare I say, "improved", - version of the Hershey cake.  The two recipes are very similar but whereas Hershey's uses milk and water, Beatty's cake uses buttermilk and coffee.  I was betting on buttermilk and coffee for the win.  But how can you be sure without actually trying both?

Beatty's Chocolate Cake, via Ina Garten (I've made it many times)

Which is better?

So now...let me try to get to the point before I lose you completely.  I finally made Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" chocolate cake so I can give you an informed opinion.  Taste is subjective so this is purely our opinion   We didn't do a simultaneous comparison of the two cakes but believe me, we have eaten many slices of Beatty's chocolate cake for it to be indelible in our minds.

And after tasting the Hershey's cake, I can tell you, definitively...that my family and I do, in fact, prefer...Beatty's chocolate cake!  The Hershey's cake is good - it's really good - but it lacks the depth of chocolate flavor and fluffiness of Beatty's cake.  The Hershey cake, particularly the frosting made with cocoa powder and a generous amount of confectioners' sugar, was pronounced "too sweet" by my taste-testers. We happen to have 3 family birthdays just a few weeks apart so this Hershey cake became the vehicle for a 3-way birthday celebration, resulting in plenty of taste-testers.  

The frosting on the Hershey's cake is easy to make and goes on smoothly.  The surface does dry out/crust given the generous amount of confectioners' sugar in it.

In particular, the kids (my son and his eldest cousin, in particular) kept saying the other cake is better because this one is too sweet.  Kids complaining about something being "too sweet" took me by surprise.  I mean, this coming from children who devour neon icing on cupcakes at birthday parties!  When did children become so critical, I thought!  In all fairness, maybe they wouldn't have been so vocal about this if they hadn't had Beatty's cake often in the past and were doing a direct comparison.  Everything is relative.

Speaking for myself now, I might have liked Hershey's cake more than the kids did.  Yes, it is sweeter than Beatty's cake.  Three cups of confectioners' sugar in the chocolate icing can't help but leave an aftertaste of sugar in your throat.  But I didn't find it too overbearing.  I thought it was a very good chocolate layer cake, reminding me of the kind I ate and loved as a child (apparently, children's tastes have evolved).  If there's a cake you'd eat with a tall glass of milk, this is the one.  It's just got that old-fashioned flavor to it, and I mean that in a good way.  Interestingly enough, it reminded me of Brooklyn Blackout Cake, which I really like and attempted once.  This cake is far simpler to make than that one.

The inside of the Hershey cake.  It's very moist but not quite as fluffy as Beatty's cake.

And one important point going for the Hershey cake is how easy it is to make! There's no fresh coffee to brew or chocolate to melt.  It is most definitely the easier of the two cakes to make by far.  And to its credit, the Hershey cake is very moist though heavier and denser than Beatty's cake, which is not only really moist but also delicate - airy, almost.  The buttercream in Beatty's cake uses melted chocolate instead of cocoa, and with more fat than confectioners' sugar, it stays soft and creamy instead of crusting on the surface like the Hershey's cake does.

Making this cake and frosting, much like making those cocoa brownies, gave me a renewed appreciation for cocoa powder.  It's the driving force behind this cake and created far more chocolate flavor in itself than I would've thought possible.  I think the cake really could use a boost of coffee to heighten that chocolate flavor even more.  That, alas, brings me right back to Beatty's cake. You know which I'll be making in my house whenever we get the craving for a chocolate layer cake.  

If anyone has tried both these cakes, I'd be very interested in your take on it!

Devil's Food cake

I started celebrating Valentine's Day a little early with - what else - (more) chocolate!  I can't think of a better time to make a deep, dark, luscious chocolate cake than right now.  

The reality is, chocolate is a regular part of my life and I really don't need any excuse to enjoy it.  Every time I stir up a batch of ganache and smell that intoxicating aroma, I hope that I come back in my next life as a chocolatier.  I used Valentine's Day as the special occasion to make this Devil's Food cake.  It was also comfort food ahead of the snow storm we just had.  We ended up with almost a feet of snow but the power stayed on so no complaints!

Now, I don't know about you but my family and I most definitely prefer the "devil's food" over "angel food".  The precise difference between chocolate cake and Devil's Food cake isn't really clear but I do know that we always have room for another good chocolate cake recipe in our repertoire.  So to expand my own chocolate cake repertoire, I made David Lebovitz's Devil's Food Cake, a recipe on his website I've eyed for ages now...you need only a glimpse of that frosting to fall in love!

This cake was easy to make and so easy to eat.  I think it's just a great version of classic Devil's Food cake.  If I'm to compare it to my favorite chocolate layer cake, I'd have to say that one is moister and has a deeper chocolate flavor (I like to eat it plain even without frosting), mainly because that cake has oil - instead of butter - and a solid cup of coffee in it.  This Devil's Food cake has butter, a bit less coffee, and milk in it.  It's likewise moist but has more of a classic, slightly firmer, yet still fluffy, texture to it.  There's a time and place for everything and I really like both.

The frosting on this cake is ganache, my very favorite!  And it pairs really well with this cake.  I opted to use water instead of cream in the ganache since it's already rich enough with a stick and a half of butter in it.  Believe it or not, the cake was surprisingly "light" (in taste and texture, not calories, unfortunately) and certainly not overly sweet.

My favorite part of making a cake, besides the actual making part, is slicing it up and sitting around the table enjoying it with my husband and the little guy (who digs right into the frosting but systematically plows away at the entire slice of cake).  Being together, sitting down, relaxing over good food is one of the best aspects of life.  It could be Valentine's Day or any old day but I love a reason to celebrate.

Almost fudge gâteau for a gathering

My family came over for a little coffee klatsch last weekend.  It was a great excuse to get in the kitchen and bake something.  I keep a list of things I want to make and I decided to go with the "Almost Fudge Gâteau" from one of Dorie Greenspan's books.

I figured a wedge of chocolate cake would be nice with a cup of coffee in the afternoon and be popular with the kids (most of them anyway; my young niece is neither a fan of most chocolates or desserts for that matter...she prefers strawberries).  For me, I love any excuse to make and eat something with chocolate.

This is one of those basic, pure chocolate desserts.  Kind of like a little black dress, it's relatively simple but timeless.  When it comes to this gâteau, or cake, think flourless chocolate cake but with more structure since there is a modest amount of flour in the recipe.  It doesn't look like much - pretty rustic, in fact, with its sunken middle, but it is that wonderful kind of one-layer/no frosting kind of cake that I love to make and enjoy.

You could make a chocolate glaze for this cake but I opted out of that.  Without the glaze, it's not quite as decadent but a nice simple weekend afternoon treat.  Some of us enjoyed it with a scoop of ice cream but I thought it was nice all on its own.  The young boys in our family (my son and two of his cousins) wanted the cake with chocolate ice cream; I guess some of us can never have too much chocolate.

I think I'll keep this little black dress of a recipe in my files.

A super moist chocolate cake

I think this is the ultimate chocolate layer cake.  The thing that really knocks you out is the cake itself.  It is sooo seriously moist and dark and ultra chocolaty - everything you'd want if you're a fan of chocolate cake.  The buttercream frosting is a great accompaniment to the delicate, moist cake. 

When I make and look at this cake, it reminds me of one of those black and white sitcoms from the 60's where the kids would come home from school and have something like this with a tall glass of cold milk.  It's traditional and that's not a bad thing.  

Cookies, brownies, and cupcakes are all great but a cake says celebration or a special occasion.  And we should all celebrate more often.  I just made this cake for our little Easter party this past Sunday and I've made this for birthdays and often when we just have a hankering for it.  It requires a bit of effort but I think it's worth it.