Finding the Best Chocolate Cake Recipe (Part 1)

[Ladybug]

I've made the Hershey's recipe for chocolate cake several times - and it does taste great. However, my memory of it isn't good enough to compare it with Sinclair's recipe. I do know one thing - I've had the same problem with the Hershey's recipe every stinking time I've made it - it falls apart. I stopped using Hershey's recipe when it finally dawned on me that the cake fell apart every time. BTW, I always seem to make layer cakes and I used that particular recipe with a pecan praline and whipped cream filling. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I'd oh-so-carefully managed to assemble the cake, wrapped it up in a Tupperware cake taker and oh-so-carefully transferred it to a party and the whole cake had broken in half and slid in different directions. Everyone ate it anyway and said it was delicious, but I felt so embarrassed.

[Wendy DeBord]

I tested several Hersheys chocolate cake recipes before I found out about S. Wooleys cake. They all were decent. But none were perfect. I found the recipe from Spago's book was more consistant, easier to handle and better then all the Hershey recipes I tested.

I still have my book with notes on the Hersheys recipes I tried........if your interested? It's up to the majority of people that baked these recipes to choose what cake is best and if the next recipe is better then the last.

P.S. As long as egullet exists this topic is open for improvements and additions. Come back and add any recipe you've tried that can beat our best. Your doing us all a favor! Welcome to the conversation!

[ElfWorks]

ladybug, never had any of those problems with the hersheys cake... hmmmm. oh well, sinclair, thanks for the welcome and the offer of your notes. i am good to go, tho.

i do have a q, however, when the chocolate cake round is over, you ARE going to post not only the winner, but any tweaking that was done, right?

and personally, i would love to see one of the future bake-offs being a search for the quintessential lemon layer cake!

i am the owner of about 25 different recipes, and am still looking......

lisa

[Wendy DeBord]

Actually this is proven to be more challenging then I imagined it would be. I have my opinions that at times have been backed by others opinions and also challenged by them. Ideally I want to reach a group consensous on each subject. So I'm going to draw my conclusions doing my best to keep everyones thoughts in mind......but I'm plagged by my own biases. SO I need you all to keep me in line if I stray or misunderstand, please.

I'd like to post our final results at the beginning of this thread so in the future it's easy for everyone to find it with-out having to read through pages of trials.

This is a list of scores on the Scott Wooley Fudge Brownie Cake, scored 1-5 with 5 being the best.

Lorea, 4.5

Moopheus, (still waiting on a number)

Mklynch, 4

Mkfradin, 4

Ladybug, 4.5

Kthull, 5

KarenS, 3.5

Nightscotsman, 4.5

Samaki, 4

RMR, 4.5

JanKK,4

TP (M'sia), 4.5

FWED (group tasting), 4

Shewie, 3.5

DeannaS, 3.5

Dee, 4.5

Wendy(myself), 4.5

Now how do I draw a conclusion from this? Well it's pretty obvious this isn't the "best" and there is still room to beat this recipe or to tweak it into a better cake. No other cake offered up to beat this- seemed to become a clear winner over S. Wooleys cake either. I think the next thing to do would be to tweak this recipe and see if we can improve it. I'll start a seperate thread on that topic and hopefully all our mad scientists will turn out and lead us to a great conclusion.

In less you all disaprove, as I understand everyones conculsions.... no cake beat the Wooley recipe. We had several people that chose a different cake as their favorite, but I didn't see any ditto responses on those to make a pattern and knock the Wooley recipe out.

Those that agree give me a "ditto" response please, or if you disagree with my conculsions-please explain why and try to link another persons opinion backing yours so I can see what I missed. Thanks everyone.............please look for the thread on tweaking the Wooley recipe if your interested in seeking perfection.

[Samaki]

"I tested several Hersheys chocolate cake recipes ..... They all were decent. But none were perfect."

Ditto.

And as far as their sheet cakes go, I know I can do better. The hand's down most popular recipe I ever created came about trying to improve one of their recipes.

[JanKK]

You've got my "ditto" on that, Wendy :)

[FWED]

Ditto Two

[kthull]

Ditto on the next phase!

[chocartist]

Steve, I'm intrigued by the quote from Regina Schrambling's NYTimes article on cocoa. What's this about pressing the pods???? Am I misinterpreting something here? Is she implying that cacao pods are pressed to make cocoa? Of course that's not the case. Chocolate liquor is what's pressed in order to extract most of the fat, leaving a dry cocoa cake--which is then pulverized, resulting in cocoa powder. What did she mean by her statement?

[KarenS]

Sinclair, I have been so busy (business is booming)- our espresso bar sells out of everything everyday. I figured out that we are doing 450 portions per day (and there are three people one day a week).Other days it is two. Many days we are selling 600 desserts (we do have three restaurants) gave me a big smile to see that you baked our cake! I am sure that it is similar to Mary Bergin's cake- I know her (we both came from the "Wolfgang Puck school") We do that four layer with a valhrona equitoriale ganache and serve it with a glass of milk and candied pistachios and cashews, with whipped cream.

[Tepee]

KarenS' recipe is too large for a homebaker like me. Is it OK to reduce the ingredients proportionately to make 2 9" rounds?

Oh, by the way, ditto, Wendy.

[Wendy DeBord]

There shouldn't be any reason why you can't do 1/2 her recipe, TP.

[Wendy DeBord]

[Host Note: This topic has been merged into the topic you are reading. Starting with this post, readers attempted to perfect the favorite recipe.]

This thread begins our "tweaking" of that recipe. It's time to really split hairs and experiment with all the factors to achieve perfection. I think the brand of cocoa powder will be something to explore as well as maybe some work on the leavening amounts, because my version of this recipe always domes high and cracks.

The recipe comes from "Cakes By Design, the magical world of sugar art", written by Scott Clark Woolley & Michael G. Farace, published by The Overlook Press in 2002.

"Fudge Brownie Cake"

1 1/2 c. (5 oz.) unsweetened cocoa powder

3 c. (13 oz.) ap flour

2 c. (14 oz.) sugar

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

Mix dry ingredients together. Set aside.

In a seperate bowl, beat together:

3/4 c. (6 oz.) butter

2/3 c. (1/4 pt.) vegetable oil

1 c. (8 fl. oz) buttermilk

3 large eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Add dry ingredients into wet. Mix until combined, scraping the side of your bowl a couple times so your mixture is smooth. Then add:

1 1/2 c. (12 fl.oz.) boiing water or coffee

Bake 300F aprox. 1 hour.

Please understand that we are NOT taking on offers for any more chocolate cakes recipes in this thread. This thread will focus only on this one recipe and what improvements we can make to it to achieve the perfect chocolate cake.

Everyone is welcome to participate!! Photos are highly encouraged, they really highlight your efforts. Soooo come on all your scientists, what can you do to improve this recipe?

[FWED]

Hi Wendy. I wanted to add that when I baked the Wooley cake I didn't get much if any doming or cracking. I must admit that I used the "MAGI-CAKE" strips recommended by Rose Levy Beranbaum. I use these routinely and have not had a problem since I started using them. For those of you that are not familiar with them they are strips of aluminized fabric which, when moistened and wrapped around a pan, keep the sides of the pan cooler. This slows down the baking at the sides of the cake so that they rise at the same rate as the center thus ending up with a level top. I also baked the cakes in a conventional oven. No convection. Some of the tasters did not an off taste in this cake so I will try the recipe again using 1/2 teaspoon less of baking soda and see what happens.

I will also do some fact finding on cocoa powders and see where that leads taste wise.

Edited June 1, 2004 by FWED (log)

[Samaki]

My attempt also didn't dome or crack, and I didn't use any magicake strips. I'll give it a second go and see if it comes out the same.

I love tweaking cake recipes, so I'm really excited about this. What I want to know, though, is more specifically what we are aiming for? My trouble was that it tasted too bitter. I know others found it too crumbly. Are these things that we want to fix?

[Wendy DeBord]

Ah, well good points Samaki. It really comes down to which ingredients people used and their baking proceedure and ovens, etc...

One of the things that stands out in my head, or that I thought I read repeatedly was that "it was good, but didn't make you crave more". I'm not certain I can pin point why that was so.... or is it about each persons tastes expectations?

**I guess I need to ask everyone what it was that didn't make them love this cake and what issues made it less then perfect for you?

These are my photos of this recipe. First one is raw batter. Was this the color and consistancy of your batters too?

This is how my rounds look consistantly. I have cracking and a good size dome.

BUT, I will admit these imperfections in my baking:

1. I multiple this recipe by as much as 24 when I make it and I never measure the amount I put in each pan. Perhaps I'm over filling them?

2. I always use a confection oven and it's possible I'm not waiting long enough for the temp. to come down after baking other items at 350f.

Did anyone elses cake look like mine? Cracked and domed.....if so could you have made similar errors to me? Then if yours did have those problems, can you tell me your certain your oven was on the right temp. & using which type of oven (conventional or confection)?

When I bake a full sheet pan, those two issues really aren't as pronounced. Here's a photo of a full sheet pan.

If yours was bitter Samaki, what brand of cocoa powder did you use? I don't get a bitter taste at all in my cakes. Did anyone else get a bitter taste, if so which brand of cocoa did you use?

Also, I've never experienced this being dry or crumbly. I never bake by time and I'm nuts about over baked cakes-so I don't lean that way at all. Those who's cakes were dry, are you absolutely certain you didn't over bake? Then are you certain that your ovens temp is acurate, and did you use the middle shelf of your oven or not?

[LT Wong]

I got in late to this, but I did bake the cake and followed the instructions closely.

My cake did not dome or crack as much as what I've seen in some of the photos. I have a convection oven, and I would normally bake it about 25-50F lower than what is instructed. I found that on cooling (wrapped in plastic), the dome came down slightly.

As in one of the responses, I could taste a bit of the baking soda in the cake. I used Valrhona cocoa.

But I did like the cake as did three other testers. It scored points for having a good chocolate taste (the brand of chocolate helped a lot here, I think), fudgy, did not break into crumbs when sliced. It was, however, a little heavy and I'm not sure how well it will stand as a layer cake with a soft frosting as chocolate mousse. Anybody has tried this and any advice?

I also tried the cake defrosted; the quality didn't suffer either.

Thanks for sharing.

[Ladybug]

I thought about using those Magi-Cake strips, but then I remembered I wanted do the recipe exactly as written. I wish I'd saved the pics I took of my cakes when they came out of the oven, but I had absolutely NO cracking and only a very small dome. The center of the cake was probably a centimeter higher than the edges and that settled a bit as it cooled. The cake wasn't crumbly at all. It wasn't what I'd have described as moist, but it wasn't dry. I think, to improve the recipe, it could be more moist and more chocolate-y. I used Nestle's cocoa powder. To get anything better than Nestle's or Hershey's, I'd have to mail order it. I wonder if making the cake more moist would make it less slice-able/more fragile? My mom likes to add eggs to recipes to improve them - I wonder what that would do?

My home baker 2 cents . . .

[Amuse Bouche]

Doesn't a dome have more to do with mixing method than recipe? I made three tiers of a wedding cake this weekend, and I mixed some of the layers separately. I used the same recipe for all three tiers, and some domed and some didn't. (It didn't really matter because I leveled all of them and then ate the leavings!) but the only thing that might have really changed was the variation in mixing times and how much I creamed the butter/sugar mixture.

[kthull]

As far as doming goes, mine depended on how deep the batter was. I filled my half sheet pan two thirds and then poured the excess into a 9" square. Neither domed much and then leveled off mostly on cooling. But when I did an 8x3 round, it looked like Mount Vesuvius...huge dome and cracking all over the place. And I don't use the magi-strips.

As far as bitterness, I'm curious which testers tasted bitterness and whether they used dutched or undutched cocoa. I used dutched and didnt' catch any bitterness. Very smooth chocolatey flavor. I think if we can get a consensus first on the type of cocoa, that would be more valuable than brand, since the flavor range would vary more widely on that front. Right?

[FWED]

I used the magic strips on the original cakes in the other thread because I had already baked 2 of the 5 taste tested and wanted to keep the routine the same for all 5 cakes. As far as the type of cocoa powder used I tend to use what is called for in the recipe. I would think that for this thread we need to decide which type we are going to use, Natural of Dutched. 1+1/2 tsp of baking soda might be to much for Dutched and just right for Natural cocoa.

I'm not sure what was the cause of the off taste. Not all the tasters in my taste test of the 5 chocolate cakes could detect it in the Wooley cake but 2 of 12 could and their pallets are quite sharp. I suspect it was either due to the baking soda or the type of oil I used. So I will try a couple of things

[TrishCT]

Is adding chocolate itself a possibility? Either grated or melted?

[Samaki]

As far as bitterness, I'm curious which testers tasted bitterness and whether they used dutched or undutched cocoa. I used dutched and didnt' catch any bitterness.

I think this might be the key. I used natural cocoa, though it's a brand I've used for years without having any bitterness issues, so go figure. I'd like to try this again with dutched. The natural cocoa I use is from Germany, and I'm sure most people around here wouldn't have access to it. I have some dutched Cacao Barry cocoa around, though. I'll use that next time.

I also used canola oil, so that might have caused the off flavor as well. Or it could have been baking soda, though it didn't seem overleavened.

As far as moistness goes, the cake I baked was exceptionally moist, so I'm not sure why others had trouble with this. One guess would be overbaking, another would be adding too much cocoa powder (since the recipe gives volume and not weights). I find cocoa powder to be the hardest this of all to measure accurately by volume.

While bitter, my cake was also very chocolatey. I'm sure the degree of chocolatiness is an effect of cocoa powder brand, though.

[KarenS]

You can cut the recipe down without any problem (I do to if I bake it at home).

Mixing is the key thing- don't leave the mixer running when you add the dry and the wet; add a small amount, pulse on and off to mix.

[Tepee]

Thank you, ladies!