Epically Awesome Chocolate Cake

This is a super moist, not overly sweet, chocolate cake. Which to me, means it is practically perfect in every way! You’ll notice notes in parenthesis, these have nothing to do with the altitude and everything to do with the taste! In baking, just like in life, what you put into it matters!

CHOCOLATE CAKE Recipe:

1 C. Water

1/3 C. Cocoa Powder (The higher quality, the better it will taste!)

2 C. Flour (unbleached all-purpose works just fine.)

1 1/4 C. Sugar (I love turbinado sugar in baking)

1 tsp Salt

2 tsp Baking Soda

1 C. Buttermilk (This is not the recipe for substitutions!)

1/2 C. Butter

2 large Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla

Preheat oven to 325.

Prepare three 8 inch cake pans. Cut parchment paper or wax paper to fit the bottom. Place inside. Grease bottom and sides.

Boil water and remove from heat, stir in cocoa powder until smooth.

Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking soda. Whisk together to remove lumps.

With a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat eggs and butter until light and fluffy. Stir in vanilla. Add flour mix, alternating with buttermilk, just until combined. Stir in cocoa mixture.

Divide the batter between the cake pans and let it rest on the counter for 30 minutes at room temperature.

(This is super important! It allows the leavening to settle so we don’t get a sink hole in the middle of the cake while it’s baking.)

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Place cake pans on a cooling rack for 30 minutes. Invert onto wire rack to cool an additional 30 minutes before icing.

The cake is now done and uniformly baked and amazingly delicious. You can eat it as is, with milk or ice cream, or frost it however you want, OR you can cause a sensation!

Let’s talk EPICALLY AWESOME! Let’s talk three layers… Ganache filling and White Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream! Oh M Goodness! Are you with me?

Let’s do this!

But first, let’s stick those panless, partially cooled cakes into the refrigerator for about an hour so they are ready when we are!

GANACHE Recipe:

3 C. Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips (Again, good quality tastes best-est)

1 1/2 C. Heavy Whipping Cream

4 TBSP unsalted Butter, softened

Use a double boiler to melt chocolate chips with cream. When the mixture is smoother and more gorgeous then Harrison Ford in the 70’s, add the butter. Stir until melted and combined.

Pour the mixture into a shallow pan and let cool until steam no longer rises, then cover it and leave at room temperature until ready to use.

Let’s get those cakes now!

Put one cake layer face down on a cake stand or plate. Cover with 1/3 of the ganache. Continue to layer cake and ganache, make sure the tippy top layer of cake is placed upside down.

Bottoms up, Bottoms down!

Refrigerate again to set ganache and let’s make some Swiss Meringue Buttercream! This is my favorite part!

WHITE CHOCOLATE SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM recipe:

3/4 C. White Chocolate Chips. (I don’t like the taste of white chocolate made with partially hydrogenated oils.)

1/3 C. Sugar

3 large Egg Whites, at room temperature

Pinch Salt

1/4 tsp Vanilla

1 – 1/2 C. (3 sticks) Unsalted Butter, softened and cut into cubes

Use the double boiler again to melt the white chocolate chips. Stir until completely melted and smooth. Remove the top part of the double boiler but leave the bottom with water simmering.

Put sugar, egg whites and salt in a heatproof bowl, I use stainless steel mixing bowls, and set it over the simmering water. Whisk until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is very thin and warm, around 115 degrees.

Pour into a stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Mix on high until stiff peaks form. Reduce speed to low and mix until cooled, about 10 minutes.

Continue on low, add the vanilla. Put in the butter cubes, one at a time, until blended. Add melted white chocolate slowly. Now increase speed to medium and beat until buttercream is smooth and shiny.

Lovely!

Now bring that cake back out and crumb coat it.

That’s just a fancy way of saying thinly ice the cake so the final icing job doesn’t have any flecks of cake in it. It’s more purdier!

After the crumb coat, refrigerate the cake to set that first layer of icing. Bring it back out and apply the final coat with the remaining Buttercream.

Minus what you snitched along the way. Don’t worry. I won’t tell.

All done! Ta-da!

The most Epically Awesome Chocolate Cake ever!