I used David Lebovitz's Devil's Food Cake again, just like many other bakers who declared the cake as their favourite chocolate cake. I also tried experimenting with the recipe by increasing it 50% so I could create another layer of cake. It was still as delicious with a moist chocolatey crumb but maybe my measurements were a little wrong as one layer had a small part that was undercooked and dense. I think next time I should just stick with the original recipe. But if your adventurous like me, you could try it out and see if the results are as good as the original.
I was actually going to decorate the sides of the cake with chocolate trees made out of melted chocolate. But when I tried piping it, it turned out to be a disaster. The hot melted chocolate (I did not want to cool down otherwise it would have set) burnt my hand a bit and oozed from the piping bag everywhere onto the baking paper. So, after an unsuccessful attempt at making a baking paper piping bag, I gave up and decided to leave the cake nice and white on the outside. I didn't bother to pipe decorations either because I was too tired after the mishaps.
Devil's Food Cake from David Lebovitz
Makes a two (or three) layer 8 inch cake.
Ingredients:
9 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
1 and 1/2 cup of cake flour (you can make this by replacing three tablespoons of plain flour with cornflour/starch)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
115 grams (1 stick/4 ounces) of unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
1 and 1/2 cups of sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup of water or coffee
1/2 cup of milk
For the recipe and instructions of the Perfect buttercream frosting, click here.
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F) and grease and line 8 inch cake pans (I used two pans).
2. In a medium bowl, sift together cocoa powder, flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder and set aside.
3. In a small bowl or measuring cup, mix together the water (or coffee) and the milk and set aside.
4. Using an electric mixer, beat together butter and sugar for about 5 minutes until smooth and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, making sure that it is mixed in properly.
5. Mix in half of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, then add all of the wet ingredients (milk and water). Stir in the remaining dry ingredients and mix until fully incorporated.
4. Divide the batter into the prepared pans. You can do this by weighing (use a kitchen scale for this to weigh the whole mixture then divide it by two or three).
5. Bake the cake layers for about 25 minutes and check with a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake if it comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes then transfer to cool completely on a wired rack before frosting or decorating.
