Hi y'all,
I have to make some Valentine Cakes and all of them are to be Chocolate Cakes. As this is my first order and the customer will be very influential to other potential customers, I would really love to WOW her with a fantastic Chocolate Cake. Please help me and give me your absolute best!!!

Thanks,
Lazy_Susan

I use a DH chocoalte cake mix, add a small chocolate fudge pudding mix an extra egg, butter instead of oil and buttermilk instead of half of the water. I also throw in about 1 cup of mini chocolate chips.

or if you want a from scratch recipe I sometimes use the chocoalte fudge cake recipe found in Toba Garretts Well-decorated cake book. This one is very dense almost like a brownie texture, very good, very rich.

The cake Mix Doctor has a recipe in her book called Darn Good Chocolate cake. It is very rich and moist. I am not home now, but can post if you like. It has cake mix, sour cream, chocolate chips etc in it. I use it for my character cakes because it is so moist and holds up well. Its very chocolately and not overly sweet, kind of like a cake like brownie. I like it better then a lot of cakes that you add cocoa too, because it seems like those cakes just come out too light. Does that make sense?

Let me know if you want me to post the recipe..(can we post from cookbooks here?)

Hi!

I posted a chocolate layer cake recipe and have had some excellent feedback from some people who have made it. It's really choclatey (SP?), really moist and very easy to make. It's in the recipes section under chocolate cakes.

Thanks very much! I'm getting some great choices

1 box Cake Mix Devils Food (I like DH)
1 pkg pudding - Chocolate Fudge or Devils Food
½ c water (warm)
½ c oil
4 large eggs
1 c Sour Cream
1 pkg Mini Chocolate chips (or 1 ½ c semisweet chips)

If I don't have sour cream on hand (which is often) then I just make DH Devils Food with the extra egg and Devils Food pudding.

i have tried many chocolate cake recipes, both from scratch and box. i have basically stopped searching for "the best" because as far as i'm concerned, (and my customers) i have found it! "chocolate brownie cake" from scott woolleys book is amazing. it is sooo easy to prepare and the texture, crumb and taste is exactly what i was looking for in a cake. i found out about this recipe on another site where they were having a taste-test to see if they could find the best chocolate cake ever.

I like the scott wooley cake but I did a taste test between that and the epicurious recipe and the epicurious recipe won hands down. I made a cake with a layer of each recipe. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/101275
I posted the link to the epicurious cake.

Sandra

Hey momlovestocook, that's the one I posted! Isn't that cake amazing? Sooooooo good!

I can't believe all the amazing recipes y'all are giving. I'll have to make them all and make my hubby taste test them for me. I'm sooooo sure he won't mind! LOL

Lazy_Susan

Check out the Hershey's website. They have amazing chocolate cake recipes in there!!!!


I personally like their HERSHEY'S Lavish Chocolate cake.

http://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipes/detail.asp?id=5367&page=1&per=10&keyword=chocolate%20cake

"a fantastic Chocolate Cake" is really a matter of opinion and taste. I have 2 fantatstic recipes. Both use real chocolate and have different tastes and textures. One is a little heavier than the other and more dense. While the less dense one is feathery light, delicate and a bit 'fudgy' Both are really good but like I said it really is a matter of personal taste. Everyone will eventually find 1 that they believe to be the best

HI-

I'm one of the one who's tried and raves the Chocolate Layer Cake recipe available here on CC...It's from epicurious.com originally so I think it's the same one that momlovestocook also mentioned.

I'm a box mix junkie but let me tell you...the extra effort of buying all the ingredients and the extra mixing time is WELL WORTH THE EFFORT. My cake was still moist and yummy even without any frosting on it 5 days later!! I just left it on my counter with saran wrap around it.

Good luck on your hunt!!

Euphoriabakery, your recipe sounded so good I tried it out last night lol.. had a b-day cake to do for a friend of the family.... I haven't gotten to taste the cake itself, but the batter was soooooooooooo good!! I'll let you know that they thought about it after it gets cut

Hi loriemoms,

No, I was skeptical about the coffee too since my kids obviously don't like the taste of coffee....They LOVED the cake...I had made it for a friend who just had a baby and loves chocolate cake (she was going to taste test it for me)...everyone raved about it...it was extremely moist (but not too moist...I was still able to frost it and everything 2 hrs after I had baked it).

I do not taste the coffee in the recipe I use. I have two kids who would go yuck if they tasted any hint of coffee
You can use any icing that you would normally use on a chocolate cake. I paired it with a caramel chocolate ganache and it was heaven.

Sandra

What size pans is this cake made in? It doesn't say on the recipe. I am going to give it a try.

Yeah, I messed that up when I posted the recipe. It's for 2 10" pans so it's a pretty big cake.

Thanks ladies! i thought so (from the baking times) but wanted to be sure.

Just wanted to add the coffee in the recipe enhances or brings out the chocolate flavor it doesn't taste like coffee. This is the case in all chocolate recipes that calls for coffee.

OK ladies....the cake mix queen here made this cake today. I baked it in one 10" heart, one 6" heart and one 8" round (for the extra batter) I filled the heart pans about 2/3 full and the round was about 1/2 full. Baked the round for 22 minutes and the 6" about 40 and the 10" about 50 - any longer and they would've been over done the oven temp. was 300. The 6" heart sunk ever so slightly after removing it from the oven (I also used toothpicks and took them out of the oven as soon as there were small crumbs sticking to the toothpicks). I cooled and iced the 8" round for dinner to let everyone try it. It was a nice cake - good crumb, not real heavy or dense like most scratch cakes I have tried. This is the first scratch cake I have made that had coffee and oil in it! The comments from the family were positive one said that it tasted like a brownie in a cake version. Hubby didn't like it (but he is defiantely used to the cake mix cakes I usually make, and he only like maccaroni and cheese from a box too!) This is the very first scratch cake recipe that I have tried and have liked. Thank you for sharing it!

OH - and just so you know, while the cakes were baking my 6 year old grandson came in from school and asked me why did the house smell like coffee??? Hubby said the same thing - you may not taste it, but you sure can smell it when the cake is cooking!

I still have to ice and decorate the heart layers, they are going as a gift tomorrow (since they taste good, I just wanted to be sure first!) I still like my cake mix doctored recipes, but I have to admit, this one is a keeper.

the recipe on the side of the Hershey's cocoa box is the best one I have tried. It is a very thin batter but it bakes up beautifully and very level (unlike some of the cake mixes I have used). Very moist, very delish

Personal Choice I like Martha's Dark Chocolate Cake the best:
*** for the coffee I use powdered espresso and boiling water.


Dark Chocolate Cake

Makes 2 eight-inch-square layers
Milk may be substituted for the coffee.


12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pans

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans

1 1/2 cups sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 large whole egg, room temperature

1 large egg white, room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/3 cups strong, hot coffee

1. Heat oven to 325°. Butter two 8-inch-square baking pans. Line with parchment, and butter again. Flour pans, tapping out excess; set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine all the ingredients except the hot coffee. Mix ingredients on low speed until combined, about 1 minute. Slowly add the coffee. Mix until smooth, about 1 minute. Pour batter into prepared pans; smooth tops with an offset spatula.

3. Bake until a cake tester inserted into the middle comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer the pans to wire rack to cool. Turn out the cakes, and wrap them in plastic wrap until ready to use.

When I made it I used the circular 6", 8", and 10" pans...I baked it for the full hour at the stated temp....I used the baking strips so mine came out perfectly level...

By the way, tripletmom, I've made this again this past weekend and I have requests to make it for superbowl sunday!! hee hee.

Thanks again for sharing!!

IMO - if you wait till the toothpick comes out clean, the cake is going to be slightly overdone. It will continue to cook a minute or two after removing it from the oven. I have better luck with the few crumbs on the toothpick rule myselft.

The Epicurious recipe calls for cocoa powder that is not "Dutch processed". Does anyone have a favorite brand that they could recommend?

I don't think Hershey's is Dutch process, is it?