The Best Chocolate Cake

By Renna

Use frosting recipe The Best Frosting EVER in my Frosting Cookbook for one marvelous cake.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
• 1 1/4 cups warm water
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, making sure the baking rack is in the middle of the oven. Prepare your cake pans by cutting out a piece of parchment or wax paper to line the bottom of the pan. Grease the pans, place the parchment or wax paper in the bottom of the pan and lightly grease again. Dust the pans with flour (or cocoa powder if you don’t want the white dusting on the finished cakes). Set the pans aside.

Using a fine mesh strainer, sift together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Add the eggs, yolk, warm water, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Mix on low speed until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake the cakes for about 32-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean or with moist crumbs. Do not overbake! Remove the pans from the oven and set the pans on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Gently run a thin knife around the edges of the pans and unmold the cakes, removing the parchment paper liners from the bottom of the cakes. Let them cool completely, top sides ups, on a wire rack.