Finding the Best Chocolate Cake Recipe (Part 1)

[Sarah Phillips]

If you've already tried one or two of the other top recipes we've already tested and you have one you think is better, then bring it on! It would be helpful if you also added a few words on why you think the new recipe is better than the current favorite - moister, better flavor or texture, etc.

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Unfortunately, I haven't tried any of the recipes you've posted - I've been reading the comments and looking at the wonderful (YUMMY!) pictures.....So, I guess I better pass on posting a recipe because I can't write an honest few word comparison....Thanks anyway......

Edited March 24, 2005 by Sarah Phillips (log)

[Patrick S]

I tried another variation of the Wooley recipe, substituting milk for buttermilk and changing a few proportions. The ingredients I changed were:

10ozs AP flour (1/3 less than the original)

3.5ozs cocoa (used Hershey's dutched)

1/2t salt

1t soda

12ozs sugar

5ozs butter

Otherwise, the ingredients were the same. As you would expect, the reduced proportion of flour resulted in a very dense and moist cake. Actually, the cake is on that borderline between brownie and cake. I found that I liked the flavor a lot better without the buttermilk. I like this cake a lot, though I'm not sure how versatile it would be. But if you like a ridiculously moist cake that epitomizes the phrase "fudge brownie cake," you may want to check this variation.

[Patrick S]

Wanted to add that I liked the last cake well enough to give it a chocolate-Kahlua buttercream and serve it with Easter dinner. It was very well-liked.

[lfujii]

I tried this cake and liked it very much. My problem was making a black forrest cake with it. I baked it in 3 layers and let them cool. I brushed them with kirshc simple syrup and started filling the layers with coffee butter cream and cherries (I preffer it filled with coffe butter cream and frosted with whipped cream). By the time I put the last layer on top, my first layer (the one on the bottom) split in two under the weight of the cake. That never happened to me with my usual chocolate cake. But overall, very good flavor and texture. Used Dominican Dutch processed cocoa (Mune brand, made from locally grown cocoa beans, locally processed, very good quality,and oh, I do live in the dominican Republic). Used sour milk (buttermilk is hard to find).

[Shalmanese]

Well, my first ever chocolate cake is in the oven. I doubt this will be much use to you as a) I deviated significantly from the recipe and b) I'm a very inexperienced baker, I've only made 2 baked goods in my entire life, blueberry muffins and a chocolate mousse.

I took your base recipe as an inspiration but I unfortunately deviated significantly since this was a spur-of-the-moment type thing. I have some 70% Lindt chocoalate that was nearing it's expiration and I needed to make something with it. I'm not a big chocolate fan at all but I'm meeting a friend tomorrow who has done a lot for me lately so I thought this would be a nice gift. Everything else was cobbled together from stuff I had lying around. I also had a limited amount of butter so I cut the recipe by 1/3rd. Heres the recipe:

Dry ingredients:

240gm AP flour

200gm White sugar

60gm Dark brown sugar (I thought the brown sugar would add a interesting depth to it)

1 tbsp baking soda (oh shite, I realised the original recipe was for 1 1/2 tsp :o)

1 tsp salt (same here :o)

Wet ingredients:

120gm chocolate

70gm vegtable oil

120gm butter

100mL milk (not buttermilk because I didn't have any)

60mL Baileys (needed to be used up)

2 large eggs, seperated

2 tbsp vanilla

1 cup boiling water.

Procedure:

melt choc and oil over a bain. Let cool to body temp.

Cream egg yolks and sugar and add to choc mix.

Cream butter with sugar and add to mix.

heat milk and baileys to body temp and add to mix.

whip egg whites to medium peaks, fold into mix in 3rds.

sift remaning sugar with flour, baking soda and salt, fold into mix.

Add cup of boiling water, mix, spoon out into greased, lined baking pan.

Bake at 150C (300F).

Pics will be up in T minus 45 minutes or thereabouts.

[Shalmanese]

Here it is:

I'm usually a very anti-cake person but this is something I would make an exception for. There wasn't as much chocolate oomph as I had hoped, probably because I used chocolate instead of cocoa. The chocolate taste was just on the edge, I would say almost a chocolate flavoured cake rather than a chocolate cake. If it had a few more main flavours to riff off each other, that would have been perfect. Perhaps some nuts or dried fruit. Oh well, next time.

Anyway, this cake was impossibly moist and impossible soft, nice, big crumb that disintegrated in your mouth. The crust on top provided just the hint of texture to offset the softness. The perfect cake to have with a nice cold glass of milk. The baileys flavour was almost completely missing from the end product so I ended up sprinkling the rest of my baileys (about 3 shots worth) onto the top and letting it seep in. By tomorrow, it should be even more moist.

The salt and baking soda upset didn't affect the flavour much. You could definately taste the salt if you looked for it but I think it was just on the boundary between being complex and being salty. Previously, I had been sceptical of salt in baking since I couldn't discern much difference but I can definately see with this one how it opens up the palate. Oddly enough, the cake almost had no rise at all, maybe my baking soda is too old.

I would say that this was an astounding success given my inexperience and complete random diversions from the stated recipe. Thank you egullet!

[Shalmanese]

BTW: Does anyone have tips on storing the cake? Currently I have it wrapped top and bottom in some clean greaseproof paper and then placed inside another baking pan with some plastic wrap on top and left on the counter overnight. Is there a better way to keep it fresh?

[ellencho]

I'm late to the party (as usual), but I pretty much followed Nightscotsman's protocol of mixing the ingredients because it made the most sense to me.

This is how I differed from the original recipe:

I added 2 Tbs of corn syrup like tejon used in the original Chocolate cake thread. I also added a teaspoon of some chocolate extract that I picked up a couple months ago at a random kitchen supply shop. I think I should have added two tsps instead of 1 since there were 2 tsps of vanilla but I wimped out because I was worried about how strong the extract would be. Oh well that's what I get for being a wimp.

Here's a pic of the extract if anyone is curious.

This is a pic of everything set up before I combined them into the batter. Dry ingredients, creamed butter and sugar, and wet ingredients - duh :)

Here is the batter all mixed up and ready to go. I used two 9 inch pans and managed to fill them with about 2 lbs 12 oz of batter.

Here they are cooling after 55 minutes in my 300 degree oven. They domed a bit during baking and one of them cracked even though I used cakestrips. But they went down as you'll see in the next pic after this one.

This is the side view of the two cakes cooling. See? They ended up sinking a bit after I took them out of the oven.

So I'm going to let these babies cool before I wrap em up and stick them in my freezer overnight. Tomorrow I shall frost them with a nice whipped ganache. I'll try to remember to post pics tomorrow.

Edited March 30, 2005 by ellencho (log)

[Wendy DeBord]

Better late then never, welcome to the dicussion Ellencho.

In the recipes dirrections, you are not supposed to let the cake cool down before wrapping them. Theres a reason for that. (I also just recently heard mention of a Chicagoland bakery doing this for their milk sponge cakes.) The reason: steam! When the steam is trapped the moisture from it goes back into the cake effecting the cakes texture. Freezing cakes and defrosting them also effects texture/moisture content....and your dirrected to freeze this cake with-in a few minutes of taking it out of the oven.

I also purchased some of that chocolate extract out of curiosity from Williams Sonoma. I can't taste it baked in a cake. It doesn't replace the balance of vanilla so it's not an equal subsitute. So that's going to effect the taste of your cake too.

The hardest part of testing out recipes is having everyone follow the ingredients and methods exactly. If you improvise, your not making the same item. BUT..........that's certainly fine and fun to do. Just remember your no longer comparing apples to apples.

[ellencho]

In the recipes dirrections, you are not supposed to let the cake cool down before wrapping them. Theres a reason for that. (I also just recently heard mention of a Chicagoland bakery doing this for their milk sponge cakes.) The reason: steam! When the steam is trapped the moisture from it goes back into the cake effecting the cakes texture. Freezing cakes and defrosting them also effects texture/moisture content....and your dirrected to freeze this cake with-in a few minutes of taking it out of the oven.

You know, I was thinking about that same exact thing today. I was wondering if I should wrap the cakes while they're warm, and if I did, whether the steam would cause the cake to stay moist, or if the cake would just stick to the plastic wrap and leave me with a gummy mess when I unwrapped them. So I compromised, and I let the cakes cool about half an hour, and wrapped them up while still warm. They weren't blazing hot when I wrapped them but they still had plenty of heat still in them since I had cooled them in their pans.

Thanks for the advice Wendy!

Edited March 30, 2005 by ellencho (log)

[ellencho]

Ok, so I know I didn't wrap up my cake immediately after taking it out of the oven out of fear that the cake would clump up and stick to the plastic but regardless of that, I think it turned out pretty good. It was chocolate-y tasting enough for my liking, and the crumb was nice and moist. I served it with a half milk half dark chocolate ganache and I think the sweetness of the ganache complemented the chocolatey-ness of the cake.

[PassionateChefsDie]

Hi I posted this recipe

Which is a Melting Chocolate Pudding rather than a cake made with a quality chocolate its got it all the crispy brownie texture, going into a souffle finishing with a melting centre.

http://recipes.egullet.org/recipes/r1266.html

Not a cake as such but a winner I'm sure you'll agree once you've made it!

Stef

[LindaK]

I got lucky and stumbled across this recipe just when I needed it. I made Neil's variation, which was pretty straightforward and foolproof (I'm not terribly accomplished in the cake department). I cooked mine in a large bundt pan, since what I wanted was something I could slice and top with fruit sorbets. Turned out to be perfect for the purpose--easily served 16 apres BBQ diners (with some left over for b'fast). And because the cake isn't terrbly sweet, the sorbets were a great accompaniment. I loved it with the lemon, others preferred raspberry, and the die-hards went for the chocolate sorbet.

thanks!

[skyflyer3]

Tried the recipe today using Patrick's revisions for milk, except I only had cream on hand so I did it with cream, and I wanted to make cupcakes for a friend so they became cupcakes. Because of the extra fat, I added 4.5 oz of butter instead of 5 oz. Hm, I also used Ambrosia cocoa from Costco, only because I had some on hand I wanted to use up, King Arthur AP flour and Bakewell baking powder.

Filled each paper to about 5/6 of the way to the top, baked for 30 minutes at 285, and there was some rising when I took them out but they fell after they cooled. I had some steaming in a plastic bag, some I popped into the freezer, and one I ate immediately. The one I ate right away was perfect - the crumb was fine (moist yet distinct), the texture slightly springy and the chocolate flavor was excellent. While I waited for the steaming ones to cool, I made up some Light Ganache Frosting from the Cake Bible, which I made with Trader Joe's Bittersweet chocolate bar (this turned out surprisingly excellent, by the way. Will be using this stuff over my usual Guittard, Valrhona or Callebaut next time).

A couple of hours later, I frosted a few of the steamed ones and ate some plain as I decorated. The plain ones were very chocolatey, very compact and more of a brownie than a cake in texture - so moist, the crumb was almost indistinguishable. I loved the chocolate flavor the cocoa lent to the cakes, but it definitely could have been sweeter. Frosted, however, they were perfect. I wish I'd laid out some that I didn't shock, to see if they turned out like the one I ate right away - I preferred it that texture than the steamed ones. Will let you know later how the frozen ones turn out.

By the way, has anyone tried to increase the sugar more to make it sweeter? I don't know how much to add that won't affect the recipe too much.

[Ling]

^I did suggest increasing the amount of sugar, but that was because I made the cake plain, without frosting.

[meredithla]

I invited 11 people over to taste 5 different chocolate cake recipes to see if there was a clear favorite. They were all tasted plain with no icings. The recipes I used:

#1-Hershey's Cocoa cake recipe (on back of cannister)

#2-A pre-measured (yup, that means mix) doctored up with some coffee, sour cream-THANKS K8!

#3-Colette Peters Bourbon Chocolate Cake

#4-Martha Stewart's Dark Chocolate Cake

#5-Scott Clark Wooley recipe using Neil's modifications (see Wooley chocolate cake thread)

There was no runaway winner. The results were:

1st-Hershey's recipe with 4 votes

2nd-Pre-measured recipe with 3 votes

2nd-Martha Stewart's recipe with 3 votes

3rd-Colette Peters' recipe with 1 vote

4th-Wooley recipe with 0 votes

Full disclosure: On the Martha Stewart recipe I over-filled the pans and then over-baked them. My feeling is this would have been the favorite based on taster's comments had I not overbaked it. Comments were "Great flavor, doesn't need icing, dark & fudgy, tastes most like what I think chocolate should taste like" but also "dry, too dense, heavy".

On the pre-measured cake comments were "would make great cupcakes, most typical birthday-cake tasting, like kids' cupcakes".

Wooley comments were "too dry, crumbly, more adult-tasting cake".

The Colette Peters was my personal favorite until I tasted it against the others. I chose the Hershey recipe for it's moistness, lightness and great chocolate flavor which was what others commented as well.

In a few weeks I'm having the same group over for a white cake & yellow cake taste-off. I'll post those results as well.

Meredith

[K8memphis]

Oh this is cool!!! Very interesting. Thanks for sharing the info!!

[Fernwood]

Meredith,

What did you use for cocoa and/or chocolate in the various recipes? I have to think that would have some effect on the flavor. Or did they all use the same product?

How come I never get invited to chocolate cake taste-offs?

Fern

[Wendy DeBord]

Other people have explained this better then I can...............but the bottom line is: recipes do not turn out exactly the same from one person to the next.

One example that comes to mind is something I read in the book The Bakers Dozen. (Simplifing things) It was a group of serious ametuers and professionals in CA that met regularly to share baking info.. One of the items they tested was angel food cake..........and they got enourmous differences from each baker even though they all were using the same recipe.

I got a little discouraged when I ran into that problem when we tried to do the "Best Of" series here. The same recipe turned out different in each persons hands here too. The best we could do was attempt to vote and count how many people chose which recipe was their favorite. I never really could declare a obvious winner in any of our testing. The majority was usually by a pretty close margin, barely able to be labeled a majority.

I've made most of the cakes you did and I can honestly say I got different results.

[skyflyer3]

Other people have explained this better then I can...............but the bottom line is: recipes do not turn out exactly the same from one person to the next.

One example that comes to mind is something I read in the book The Bakers Dozen. (Simplifing things) It was a group of serious ametuers and professionals in CA that met regularly to share baking info.. One of the items they tested was angel food cake..........and they got enourmous differences from each baker even though they all were using the same recipe.

I got a little discouraged when I ran into that problem when we tried to do the "Best Of" series here. The same recipe turned out different in each persons hands here too. The best we could do was attempt to vote and count how many people chose which recipe was their favorite. I never really could declare a obvious winner in any of our testing. The majority was usually by a pretty close margin, barely able to be labeled a majority.

I've made most of the cakes you did and I can honestly say I got different results.

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This is an incredibly philosophical statement. Of course it makes sense - there are at least ten ingredients in a cake recipe, sometimes more; you've got equipment to keep in mind, and then environment (temperatures, altitude). Combine all possible variables for all of these items, and then take into account the differences in people, and you're hit with one of the craziest realizations - that you'll probably never make something in a recipe the way the original author ever intended. Or one of the greatest mysteries - that food must be incredibly forgiving, for even the most complex recipes to work. Which must be the case - because the threads where we test different recipes and get very similar results exist. So either our standards are the same, or - ? I'd love to hear what people think.

By the way, I love the threads where we test for the best recipe. It's like a Cook's Illustrated reality show, but more creative.

[Patrick S]

Other people have explained this better then I can...............but the bottom line is: recipes do not turn out exactly the same from one person to the next.

One example that comes to mind is something I read in the book The Bakers Dozen. (Simplifing things) It was a group of serious ametuers and professionals in CA that met regularly to share baking info.. One of the items they tested was angel food cake..........and they got enourmous differences from each baker even though they all were using the same recipe.

I got a little discouraged when I ran into that problem when we tried to do the "Best Of" series here. The same recipe turned out different in each persons hands here too. The best we could do was attempt to vote and count how many people chose which recipe was their favorite. I never really could declare a obvious winner in any of our testing. The majority was usually by a pretty close margin, barely able to be labeled a majority.

I've made most of the cakes you did and I can honestly say I got different results.

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This is an incredibly philosophical statement. Of course it makes sense - there are at least ten ingredients in a cake recipe, sometimes more; you've got equipment to keep in mind, and then environment (temperatures, altitude). Combine all possible variables for all of these items, and then take into account the differences in people, and you're hit with one of the craziest realizations - that you'll probably never make something in a recipe the way the original author ever intended. Or one of the greatest mysteries - that food must be incredibly forgiving, for even the most complex recipes to work. Which must be the case - because the threads where we test different recipes and get very similar results exist. So either our standards are the same, or - ? I'd love to hear what people think.

By the way, I love the threads where we test for the best recipe. It's like a Cook's Illustrated reality show, but more creative.

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At least ten ingredients in a cake? I must be special -- I can make one with eggs, flour, and sugar. Not terribly delicious, though!

Seriously though, I think the problem is that most recipes are just not specific enough for different bakers to get exactly the same results. To take an obvious example, most recipes just specify volume of flour, without specifying how to measure that volume. Two people can make the "same" recipe, yet use flour amounts that differ by ~%20. That will have a pretty big effect on the cake.

Flour is the obvious example, but there is variability everywhere -- fat content and freshness of butter, type of veg oil, fat/sugar/cacao content of chocolate, pH of cocoa, weight of eggs, type of vanilla, heat distribution in your oven, and so on. And then you have the variability in method. What does a firm peak look like? How do you know your sugar and butter are creamed? Did you sift your flour? I think recipes can be precise algorithms that yield results that are, for all practical puposes, identical from baker to baker.

But even if all the recipes we tried were made according to precise instructions and we all got exactly the same result, the element of individual taste would ensure that we never ALL agreed on one recipe as the best. It would be like Pink Floyd fans trying to agree which of their songs is "the best." You might get a slim majority saying one song is "the best," let's say Dark Side of the Moon, but others will say Wish You Were Here, and still others will say Another Brick in the Wall.

[Kris]

I've never tried the Hershey can chocolate cake recipe, but I'm intrigued at the fact that it came in first place in your test.

[Patrick S]

If it is the same recipe as this one, on Hershey's website, I've made it several times and think it is a fine cake. Note the flour in this recipe should be spooned, not dipped-and-swept.

EDIT: Of course you don't have to use Heshey's cocoa, use the one you like best.

Edited July 25, 2005 by Patrick S (log)

[Kris]

If it is the same recipe as this one, on Hershey's website, I've made it several times and think it is a fine cake. Note the flour in this recipe should be spooned, not dipped-and-swept.

EDIT: Of course you don't have to use Heshey's cocoa, use the one you like best.

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Thanks for the info.

I weigh my cake ingredients so I wouldn't even bother with the spoon or dipped and swept methods of lour measuring.

But how high does this cake rise? I see it only calls for 1 3/4 cups flour and it has both baking powder and baking soda. When I make 2 layer cakes, I like them to be at least 4" tall (after filling and frosting them).

[Patrick S]

I weigh my cake ingredients so I wouldn't even bother with the spoon or dipped and swept methods of lour measuring. 

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Ah, but what weight will you use? It still matters. If the recipe assumes that you will dip and sweep, you have to assume that a cup of AP weighs 5 ounces, but if the recipe assumes you will lightly spoon, you have to assume that a cup weighs about 4.5 ounces. With this recipe, you should assume that 1C AP weighs about 4.5 ounces.

But how high does this cake rise?  I see it only calls for 1 3/4 cups flour and it has both baking powder and baking soda.  When I make 2 layer cakes, I like them to be at least 4" tall (after filling and frosting them).

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The cake is a good riser. I'll see if I can find a picture for you.

Edited July 25, 2005 by Patrick S (log)