Chocolate Cake For People Who Tend Not To Make Many Cakes
So this is not part of my Weekend Make Stuff Club, which both exists and needs a better title, as it is not the weekend. This is for physicsxmagic who needed a chocolate cake recipe, and by God I do love me some chocolate cake.
Take this as note of if you want a recipe from me about anything, I will post one. Usually on either Wednesdays or weekends, but I will post you a recipe.
OKAY. LET'S DO THIS THING.
Here are some necessary tips about making cake in general, since you're not going to make a good singular cake, if you don't really get what makes cake different in the first place from other baked goods, like tortes or muffins or what have you.
First of all, when making a cake all your ingredients should be at room temperature. I don't just mean the butter should be softened (though it fucking well should, and once again, soft does not mean melted. Soft means squishy).Your flour, your milk, your eggs, everything should be at the same temperature. (I'll get into how to warm up eggs in a second). Some of you may know this, it's in cooking books. However, the reason behind it is the fact that cake batter uses the creaming method of mixing. The creaming method of mixing means that the entire product is extremely dependent on the air bubbles you manage to trap inside the batter. If you add cold eggs or milk to butter, you can cause the batter to separate which means a shit cake. Plan ahead.
Second, you should add things gradually. Give the flour time to hydrate. You don't need to add all the dry or all the wet all at once. Add in increments, usually in thirds, so that everything had time to mix. You're not just slapping together a box cake here, which is full of stabilizers and chemical emulsifiers. So when I say, in the recipe, to add things gradually, then be aware that gradually does not secretly mean all at the same time, or your batter will separate and what the hell was the point of that?
Third: time. Before you add the flour, feel free to give your (warm, squishy room temperature) butter and sugar time to fluff up. Give your eggs (add separately with plenty of time to incorporate) time to blend in with the butter and then whip up. Eggs whites are so vital to baking because their protein structure allows for more trapped air. Souffles are all about the egg whites, no leaveners, just trapped air. Cage the air. Lure it in with false promises of pretty boys and then keep it in your batter forever. We shall keep the air in your grasp like all the beautiful kept boys and girls we will never be rich enough to actually possess. After the flour has been added, however, you need to be really awesomely careful not to over mix it. You know how cake is not bread? Bread has all those stringy, beautiful strings of tough gluten to make the crumb, that is not something you want in cake. You want the gluten to hate each other and not get along at all. If the cake develops gluten structures, then you get a tough and chewy cake and those are not good.
And finally: WHEN I SAY SIFT THINGS I MEAN FUCKING WELL SIFT THEM.
I'm putting the metric measurements as well this time, because if you can measure this stuff in weight, you really should. Volume is just a bad way of gauging content. However, we don't all have perfectly calibrate scientific chemistry scales at our disposal, or even decent at home baking scales. /crying forever
CAKE STUFF
Butter, for greasing the pans (as in all things, when I say butter, I do not secretly mean cooking spray or shortening. I mean butter. PAM is all well and good, but the stuff you put to line the pans still interacts with the food. Lipids matter. Say it with me: Lipids Matter. They are not the demons pop culture has made them. Lipids. Matter.)
1 3/4 cups (400 grams) all-purpose flour. You will also need some extra for flouring the pans, but I assume you have an entire sack of flour. However if you are borrowing this from a neighbor, get some extra.
2 cups (453.6 grams) white sugar
3/4 cups (170 grams) cocoa powder. Here is a small rant about cocoa powder. Hershey's cocoa power is shit. Hershey's chocolate is shit. Hershey's was chocolate was designed so the working class could have a standard of chocolate, but for some reason this became the entire American standard for chocolate and it is shit. Generic brands are all trying to measure up to Hershey's or Nestle or what have you, and they are all shit. The hint to good chocolate cake-besides the hand skills, obviously-is good chocolate. Flour, here, doesn't matter so much. Neither do the eggs, or sugar, but the chocolate matters. Chocolate always matters. Ghirardelli is probably the best you're going to find in an American supermarket, but if you can find it Penzey and Valrhona are some superb brands (though the Valrhona is a bit pricy if you aren't buying it wholesale, which no one here is).
However, if you are limited to Hershey's, which many people are, get dutch-processed over normal, as it lowers acidity, smooths flavor, has increased solubility so you don't need to mix as much, and has a richer color, which is helpful with cake.
Also if you're using baking chocolate (which is easier to find with some degree of quality) remember to cut the butter down by a tablespoon or two.
2 teaspoons (9.5 grams) baking soda
1 teaspoon (4.8 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon (4.8 grams) kosher salt. (See previous salt rant in the tomato soup recipe.)
1 cup (237 ml) buttermilk, shaken, or stirred. (If you do not have buttermilk, you can make sure by pouring a scant cup of milk (or rather, a cup of milk - 2 tablespoons) and add 2 tablespoons of white vinegar and wait 5 minutes for the milk to curdle.)
1 stick/1/2 cup of butter (113 grams of butter) softened. (SOFT MEANS SOFT.)
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature (the safest and best way to get eggs at room temperature is to put them in a bowl and run lukewarm water over them for a few minutes, until you can hold one in your hand and it stays lukewarm. Do not use hot water. Do not boil them. Do not leave them out to sit. If you have chickens you can just gets some from the chickens, I suppose.)
1 teaspoon (5 ml) pure vanilla extract
1 cup (237) freshly brewed cooled (but not cold) coffee, strength depending on your preferences, but we don't mean espresso here. Also it doesn't matter what kind of coffee you use so much as the dominant flavor will be chocolate. I mean, better coffee means better flavor, but if you have instant just chilling around, go for it. Also, you can, if you like, replace this with a good dark stout in equal measure, providing you have stout and aren't serving this cake to children. Or, well, you could, as it's just the one cup over several slices, but contrary to popular belief alcohol does not bake out. Or it does, but you'd have a burnt husk of a cake by that point.
ICING STUFF
Whether you're making this icing, or your own favorite chocolate icing, we're icing this cake. This cake will be iced. Icing isn't just about additional flavor (though it should be an extention of the cake itself. You do not put icing on a shit cake to try and cover it up, and you don't put shit icing on anything) and mouthfeel. It's about protecting the moisture of the cake itself. A good simple buttercream (which is what this is) seals in the moisture of the cake. It also makes it so you can decorate the cake however you wish without crumbs getting everywhere. Most cake decorates seal the cake in with a simple buttercream, and then add another layer of fancier icing on top.
6 ounces good semisweet chocolate (Again, chocolate matters. If you can find it, then go for Callebaut, Ghirardelli, but you're more likely to find Germans, which I've never had problems with and is generally affordable. Peeps from other countries are on their own, as I know shit about brands outside the US. Do not get a candy bars. Candy bars are not for baking.
1 cup/2 sticks (226 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature. (SQUISHY, DAMN YOU.)
1 extra-large egg yolk, at room temperature (You can either separate your egg like This, or you can crack the egg directly into you hand over a bowl (if you want to save the whites) or the trash (if you don't) and just let the white leak through your fingers. The second way is faster, easier, and you have less chance of breaking the yolk, but also gets your hands covered in egg. I learned how to do it the first way, and then Head Chef yelled at me and taught me the egg-hand one, which is better if you're cracking and separating a shit-ton of eggs. He also yelled at me until I cracked them one-handed. Just wash your hands first.)
1 teaspoon (5 ml) pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups (286 grams) sifted confectioners' sugar. (sift it. Sift it. Sift it. Sift it. SIFT IT.)
1 tablespoon (14.3 grams) cocoa or instant coffee granules, whatever you have handy.
CAKE DOING STUFF
-All of your ingredients need to be room temperature. I know I've already said this. I'm saying it again. Room temperature, for our purposes, is defined as somewhere between 20 °C (68 °F) to 29 °C (84 °F), though either end of the scale is sort of pushing it. For some reason my mom keeps both the flour and the sugar at home in the refrigerator (I don't know. I really don't. Ants, I think.) and every time I try and take some out for later cooking she just puts them back, but YOU MUST PREVAIL. THAT IS HOW IMPORTANT IT IS.
-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
-Butter 2 (8-inch) round cake pans. The best way to do this is actually, if you're using sticks of butter, to use the wrappers to grease the pans rather than the stick itself. But whatever you have, go with it.
-Flour the pans, which, if you were like me and had no idea how to do that, means you rub the inside of an already buttered or otherwise greased pan, with flour and then knock of the extra with a firm upside down pan tap to the counter. It means that your pan a.) distributes heat a bit better and b.) will not be a clingy bastard when it's time for the cake to leave it's firm and loving embrace.
-Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Sift them. Sift them all. Sift each part in, and then move them into another bowl through a sifter and then mix them together with a whisk. This is important. You do not want clumps. You do not want to have to overmix your cake to avoid clumps. Sifting things is a bitch, I know, but it's one of those things you've got to do.
In another bowl, preferably the bowl of your electric stand mixer, if you have one, but what you have is what you use, cream the butter. The butter should be creamed. It should be fluffy. It should be whipped into dutiful submission to your goals. Add the rest of the wet ingredients (EXCEPT THE COFFEE. DO NOT ADD THE COFFEE NOW. THE COFFEE IS ADDED IN A BIT) one at a time and give your butter time to incorporate them. Whip it. Whip it good. When you're adding the eggs make sure to only add them one at a time. If you don't have an electric mixer, I suggest cracking the eggs into a small bowl first and whipping then and adding them in two doses. It's harder to break a yolk when it's in a huge bowl, you know? Also, if you tend to break shells into things, small bowls give you time to fish them out. If you're mixing by hand, use a whisk, not a wooden spoon for this part.
With the mixer on low speed, or by hand, gently, with a wooden spoon, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet. Use a cup measure, or a small cup, or whatever you have handy. Before each new addition scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. This means you have less clumps and that you don't have to mix as long. And everything gets added in. This is a step. Do not skip this step. Commit to the steps.
With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Just to combine means what it sounds like. It means you have to pay attention. There may still be some patches of liquid on top, or in the middle not fully incorporated, but that's okay. Also, if you're mixing by hand, a figure-eight motion will serve you between then concentric circles will. Do not overmix this. Cake is not bread. Cake gives under your fork. Cake is weak and fluffy and delicious, it is not hardened by life as bread is.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool in the pans for 30 minutes. This is an important step. Do not wait four minutes then dig in, cooling the cakes mean they'll actually come out of the pans and you won't get a horrific cake-quake disaster that you must then turn into cake balls. (cake balls are made by mixing cake crumbs and icing and then forming them into balls and dipping them in chocolate. Good time.)
If you're extra paranoid, like me run a butter knife between the edge of the cake and the pan, but you should, probably be okay. Turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely. Completely. Do not try and ice a warm cake. It will turn into a dripping, bleeding mess and no one wants that. This may take an hour, so plan accordingly.
ICING DOING STUFF
Also if you get the icing from a can I will cry. Unless you don't have a mixer, in which case I will still cry, but I will understand. But otherwise there is no excuse. The only way to make canned icing bearable is to take a can of that stuff, put it into a mixer with cream cheese and vanilla, and whip it until fluffy, and at that point you should just make goddamn icing. I have feelings. I have feelings about box cake and canned icing. I have feelings about them and exactly none of them are positive. Except when I got that box of cake mix down for the Suspicious Attractive Hispanic woman, but that's this whole big story.
Chop the chocolate into small bits, and refer back to The Peanut Butter Cookie Chocolate Melting Tutorial for how to melt chocolate.
Stir until just melted and set aside until cooled to room temperature. We've talked about my feelings on things being room temperature. We have talked about them, and you know about them. We're adding this chocolate to butter. If it is too hot the butter will melt. That would be bad. You can do this step before mixing up your cake and then it will cool while you're doing other shit. And then you can mix the icing while baking the cake, or waiting for it to cool. Planning ahead!
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed (I've also talked about how medium-high speed does not equal all the way up. When I say medium high I mean medium high. It is less than all the way but more than the middle.) until light yellow and fluffy, about 3 minutes, but more doesn't hurt. 3 minutes is around the general time it takes. You will probably need to scrap the bowl with a spatula to make sure all the butter is properly whipped like it begged for it. Make sure the mixer is off when you scrape the bowl. Or you will mangle your one and only good spatula and it will take your four months to get a new one and you might break your mixer and then where will you be?
Add the egg yolk and vanilla, one at a time, making sure each it fully incorporated before adding the next, and continue beating for 3 minutes. The butter likes it like that.
Turn the mixer to low (low does not mean all the way up. Low means less than medium low, which is less than medium. SPEEDS MATTER. MIXERS COME WITH MORE THAN ONE SPEED FOR A REASON.) gradually add the confectioners' sugar, which you sifted. You sifted the confectioners sugar and now you're going to add it 1/4 cup or so at a time into the butter, and it will blend easily, because you sifted it like I told you to. Yes you did. You will add this gradually. You will not add it all at once. These are imperative commands.
Once added and mixed beat at medium speed, which is between medium-low and medium high and is still NOT ALL THE WAY UP. You can get stiff icing if you beat this too hard. Do you want stiff icing? You really fucking don't. Stop intermittently to scrape the sides of the bowl, until smooth and creamy. Eat it with a spoon to test this.
Dissolve the coffee or cocoa powder in 2 teaspoons of the hottest tap water. Do not use more water than that. You will ruin stuff. Mix it up in a small bowl and then add it to the icing, do not try and add it in bits.
On low speed (I have crazy eyes right now. You can't see them. But they are there) add the ROOM TEMPERATURE chocolate and coffee/cocoa to the butter mixture and mix until blended. Do not turn onto high. Do not whip it. You do not want stiff icing. Stiff if for things that are not icing. Icing is meant to be smooth and soft and delicious. It should make precious little doe-eyes at you when you touch it, gently for the first time.
Okay, now, take about half the icing into another bowl and add a bit of water to it. Just a 1-3 teaspoons 5-10 ml until it's a bit thinner than your other icing. This will be used as the crumb coat which I will talk about in a second.
ICE, ICE, BABY
Place 1 layer of your cake flat side up, on a flat plate or cake pedestal, whatever you have handy. It helps if you put the cake on what you're going to be keeping it in, because ones this thing is iced it's really hard to move a cake. You can clean serving platters.
With a knife or an offset spatula (I highly recommend the latter) spread the top with the thicker froasting.
Do not use a rubber spatula. Do not use a rubber anything. Metal makes cleaner lines and the icing won't just stick to the rubber and make everything look of fail. A butter knife will do, if you must, but do not use a rubber spatula. Offset spatulas are your friends. You love offset spatulas. Anyways, spread the top of that layer with frosting (when spreading icing, put a blob of icing into the center of the cake, and then spread, not lifting the knife/spatula. It's less important with the filling layer, but still. Good practice.) evenly as you can, and put the second layer on top, rounded side up.
Then, before you do anything, make sure the cake is compressed. Not smashed, but that the second layer is good and steady on the bottom layer. I tend to do this with a plate or a cake circle, whatever you have handy, just place it on top, push down gently so there aren't any air bubbles. Gently. Hulk No Smash.
Okay. So. That done, you're going to want to first crumb coat your cake with the slightly thinner icing. You do it like this. Watch that video. It shows you hand skills, which I can't, with text.
Crumb coating is important. You want to crumb coat, even if you don't do anything fancy, because otherwise you'll have cake bits everywhere and they'll dry up and you will have dried up cake bits all over you cake and no one wants dried up, mummified disemboweled bits of cake. I realize the lady in the video is using pre-packed icing. MAKE THE ICING BY HAND. When you're a professional cake decorator with access to actually good icing and you're shoving out cakes like you mean it, then you can think about pre-made icing. But I will still cry. I care far more about making everything from scratch then basically anyone else. My head Chef makes muffins from a box. It hurts my soul. It hurts it so much.
If you want, at this point, you can decorate however you feel. If you have piping tips, them pipe something on them. I assume if you have piping tips you know how to use them. If you don't, then you can make a quick decorating cone out a parchment paper (parchment paper is wonderful. You should get some. It is wonderful.) like so. I know a lot of people use plastic baggies to decorate cakes, but, for me, more often then not the seams explode and then I get shit everywhere, or I cut the hole at the end too big, because I'm faintly helpless and I have piping tips. You could use whipped cream, or an extra icing you have, or whatever.
You can also just take a chocolate bar and a vegetable peeler and shave chocolate curls on there. Here's a video to show you how to do that. Listen to this man. This man speaks truths. Chocolate curls make everything look better. You put this shit on cheesecake and they'll honestly think you got it from a bakery. Garnish matters. We eat first with the eyes, my friends. That's why you watch Food Network like it's porn.
Take this as note of if you want a recipe from me about anything, I will post one. Usually on either Wednesdays or weekends, but I will post you a recipe.
OKAY. LET'S DO THIS THING.
Here are some necessary tips about making cake in general, since you're not going to make a good singular cake, if you don't really get what makes cake different in the first place from other baked goods, like tortes or muffins or what have you.
First of all, when making a cake all your ingredients should be at room temperature. I don't just mean the butter should be softened (though it fucking well should, and once again, soft does not mean melted. Soft means squishy).Your flour, your milk, your eggs, everything should be at the same temperature. (I'll get into how to warm up eggs in a second). Some of you may know this, it's in cooking books. However, the reason behind it is the fact that cake batter uses the creaming method of mixing. The creaming method of mixing means that the entire product is extremely dependent on the air bubbles you manage to trap inside the batter. If you add cold eggs or milk to butter, you can cause the batter to separate which means a shit cake. Plan ahead.
Second, you should add things gradually. Give the flour time to hydrate. You don't need to add all the dry or all the wet all at once. Add in increments, usually in thirds, so that everything had time to mix. You're not just slapping together a box cake here, which is full of stabilizers and chemical emulsifiers. So when I say, in the recipe, to add things gradually, then be aware that gradually does not secretly mean all at the same time, or your batter will separate and what the hell was the point of that?
Third: time. Before you add the flour, feel free to give your (warm, squishy room temperature) butter and sugar time to fluff up. Give your eggs (add separately with plenty of time to incorporate) time to blend in with the butter and then whip up. Eggs whites are so vital to baking because their protein structure allows for more trapped air. Souffles are all about the egg whites, no leaveners, just trapped air. Cage the air. Lure it in with false promises of pretty boys and then keep it in your batter forever. We shall keep the air in your grasp like all the beautiful kept boys and girls we will never be rich enough to actually possess. After the flour has been added, however, you need to be really awesomely careful not to over mix it. You know how cake is not bread? Bread has all those stringy, beautiful strings of tough gluten to make the crumb, that is not something you want in cake. You want the gluten to hate each other and not get along at all. If the cake develops gluten structures, then you get a tough and chewy cake and those are not good.
And finally: WHEN I SAY SIFT THINGS I MEAN FUCKING WELL SIFT THEM.
I'm putting the metric measurements as well this time, because if you can measure this stuff in weight, you really should. Volume is just a bad way of gauging content. However, we don't all have perfectly calibrate scientific chemistry scales at our disposal, or even decent at home baking scales. /crying forever
CAKE STUFF
Butter, for greasing the pans (as in all things, when I say butter, I do not secretly mean cooking spray or shortening. I mean butter. PAM is all well and good, but the stuff you put to line the pans still interacts with the food. Lipids matter. Say it with me: Lipids Matter. They are not the demons pop culture has made them. Lipids. Matter.)
1 3/4 cups (400 grams) all-purpose flour. You will also need some extra for flouring the pans, but I assume you have an entire sack of flour. However if you are borrowing this from a neighbor, get some extra.
2 cups (453.6 grams) white sugar
3/4 cups (170 grams) cocoa powder. Here is a small rant about cocoa powder. Hershey's cocoa power is shit. Hershey's chocolate is shit. Hershey's was chocolate was designed so the working class could have a standard of chocolate, but for some reason this became the entire American standard for chocolate and it is shit. Generic brands are all trying to measure up to Hershey's or Nestle or what have you, and they are all shit. The hint to good chocolate cake-besides the hand skills, obviously-is good chocolate. Flour, here, doesn't matter so much. Neither do the eggs, or sugar, but the chocolate matters. Chocolate always matters. Ghirardelli is probably the best you're going to find in an American supermarket, but if you can find it Penzey and Valrhona are some superb brands (though the Valrhona is a bit pricy if you aren't buying it wholesale, which no one here is).
However, if you are limited to Hershey's, which many people are, get dutch-processed over normal, as it lowers acidity, smooths flavor, has increased solubility so you don't need to mix as much, and has a richer color, which is helpful with cake.
Also if you're using baking chocolate (which is easier to find with some degree of quality) remember to cut the butter down by a tablespoon or two.
2 teaspoons (9.5 grams) baking soda
1 teaspoon (4.8 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon (4.8 grams) kosher salt. (See previous salt rant in the tomato soup recipe.)
1 cup (237 ml) buttermilk, shaken, or stirred. (If you do not have buttermilk, you can make sure by pouring a scant cup of milk (or rather, a cup of milk - 2 tablespoons) and add 2 tablespoons of white vinegar and wait 5 minutes for the milk to curdle.)
1 stick/1/2 cup of butter (113 grams of butter) softened. (SOFT MEANS SOFT.)
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature (the safest and best way to get eggs at room temperature is to put them in a bowl and run lukewarm water over them for a few minutes, until you can hold one in your hand and it stays lukewarm. Do not use hot water. Do not boil them. Do not leave them out to sit. If you have chickens you can just gets some from the chickens, I suppose.)
1 teaspoon (5 ml) pure vanilla extract
1 cup (237) freshly brewed cooled (but not cold) coffee, strength depending on your preferences, but we don't mean espresso here. Also it doesn't matter what kind of coffee you use so much as the dominant flavor will be chocolate. I mean, better coffee means better flavor, but if you have instant just chilling around, go for it. Also, you can, if you like, replace this with a good dark stout in equal measure, providing you have stout and aren't serving this cake to children. Or, well, you could, as it's just the one cup over several slices, but contrary to popular belief alcohol does not bake out. Or it does, but you'd have a burnt husk of a cake by that point.
ICING STUFF
Whether you're making this icing, or your own favorite chocolate icing, we're icing this cake. This cake will be iced. Icing isn't just about additional flavor (though it should be an extention of the cake itself. You do not put icing on a shit cake to try and cover it up, and you don't put shit icing on anything) and mouthfeel. It's about protecting the moisture of the cake itself. A good simple buttercream (which is what this is) seals in the moisture of the cake. It also makes it so you can decorate the cake however you wish without crumbs getting everywhere. Most cake decorates seal the cake in with a simple buttercream, and then add another layer of fancier icing on top.
6 ounces good semisweet chocolate (Again, chocolate matters. If you can find it, then go for Callebaut, Ghirardelli, but you're more likely to find Germans, which I've never had problems with and is generally affordable. Peeps from other countries are on their own, as I know shit about brands outside the US. Do not get a candy bars. Candy bars are not for baking.
1 cup/2 sticks (226 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature. (SQUISHY, DAMN YOU.)
1 extra-large egg yolk, at room temperature (You can either separate your egg like This, or you can crack the egg directly into you hand over a bowl (if you want to save the whites) or the trash (if you don't) and just let the white leak through your fingers. The second way is faster, easier, and you have less chance of breaking the yolk, but also gets your hands covered in egg. I learned how to do it the first way, and then Head Chef yelled at me and taught me the egg-hand one, which is better if you're cracking and separating a shit-ton of eggs. He also yelled at me until I cracked them one-handed. Just wash your hands first.)
1 teaspoon (5 ml) pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups (286 grams) sifted confectioners' sugar. (sift it. Sift it. Sift it. Sift it. SIFT IT.)
1 tablespoon (14.3 grams) cocoa or instant coffee granules, whatever you have handy.
CAKE DOING STUFF
-All of your ingredients need to be room temperature. I know I've already said this. I'm saying it again. Room temperature, for our purposes, is defined as somewhere between 20 °C (68 °F) to 29 °C (84 °F), though either end of the scale is sort of pushing it. For some reason my mom keeps both the flour and the sugar at home in the refrigerator (I don't know. I really don't. Ants, I think.) and every time I try and take some out for later cooking she just puts them back, but YOU MUST PREVAIL. THAT IS HOW IMPORTANT IT IS.
-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
-Butter 2 (8-inch) round cake pans. The best way to do this is actually, if you're using sticks of butter, to use the wrappers to grease the pans rather than the stick itself. But whatever you have, go with it.
-Flour the pans, which, if you were like me and had no idea how to do that, means you rub the inside of an already buttered or otherwise greased pan, with flour and then knock of the extra with a firm upside down pan tap to the counter. It means that your pan a.) distributes heat a bit better and b.) will not be a clingy bastard when it's time for the cake to leave it's firm and loving embrace.
-Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Sift them. Sift them all. Sift each part in, and then move them into another bowl through a sifter and then mix them together with a whisk. This is important. You do not want clumps. You do not want to have to overmix your cake to avoid clumps. Sifting things is a bitch, I know, but it's one of those things you've got to do.
In another bowl, preferably the bowl of your electric stand mixer, if you have one, but what you have is what you use, cream the butter. The butter should be creamed. It should be fluffy. It should be whipped into dutiful submission to your goals. Add the rest of the wet ingredients (EXCEPT THE COFFEE. DO NOT ADD THE COFFEE NOW. THE COFFEE IS ADDED IN A BIT) one at a time and give your butter time to incorporate them. Whip it. Whip it good. When you're adding the eggs make sure to only add them one at a time. If you don't have an electric mixer, I suggest cracking the eggs into a small bowl first and whipping then and adding them in two doses. It's harder to break a yolk when it's in a huge bowl, you know? Also, if you tend to break shells into things, small bowls give you time to fish them out. If you're mixing by hand, use a whisk, not a wooden spoon for this part.
With the mixer on low speed, or by hand, gently, with a wooden spoon, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet. Use a cup measure, or a small cup, or whatever you have handy. Before each new addition scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. This means you have less clumps and that you don't have to mix as long. And everything gets added in. This is a step. Do not skip this step. Commit to the steps.
With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Just to combine means what it sounds like. It means you have to pay attention. There may still be some patches of liquid on top, or in the middle not fully incorporated, but that's okay. Also, if you're mixing by hand, a figure-eight motion will serve you between then concentric circles will. Do not overmix this. Cake is not bread. Cake gives under your fork. Cake is weak and fluffy and delicious, it is not hardened by life as bread is.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool in the pans for 30 minutes. This is an important step. Do not wait four minutes then dig in, cooling the cakes mean they'll actually come out of the pans and you won't get a horrific cake-quake disaster that you must then turn into cake balls. (cake balls are made by mixing cake crumbs and icing and then forming them into balls and dipping them in chocolate. Good time.)
If you're extra paranoid, like me run a butter knife between the edge of the cake and the pan, but you should, probably be okay. Turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely. Completely. Do not try and ice a warm cake. It will turn into a dripping, bleeding mess and no one wants that. This may take an hour, so plan accordingly.
ICING DOING STUFF
Also if you get the icing from a can I will cry. Unless you don't have a mixer, in which case I will still cry, but I will understand. But otherwise there is no excuse. The only way to make canned icing bearable is to take a can of that stuff, put it into a mixer with cream cheese and vanilla, and whip it until fluffy, and at that point you should just make goddamn icing. I have feelings. I have feelings about box cake and canned icing. I have feelings about them and exactly none of them are positive. Except when I got that box of cake mix down for the Suspicious Attractive Hispanic woman, but that's this whole big story.
Chop the chocolate into small bits, and refer back to The Peanut Butter Cookie Chocolate Melting Tutorial for how to melt chocolate.
Stir until just melted and set aside until cooled to room temperature. We've talked about my feelings on things being room temperature. We have talked about them, and you know about them. We're adding this chocolate to butter. If it is too hot the butter will melt. That would be bad. You can do this step before mixing up your cake and then it will cool while you're doing other shit. And then you can mix the icing while baking the cake, or waiting for it to cool. Planning ahead!
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed (I've also talked about how medium-high speed does not equal all the way up. When I say medium high I mean medium high. It is less than all the way but more than the middle.) until light yellow and fluffy, about 3 minutes, but more doesn't hurt. 3 minutes is around the general time it takes. You will probably need to scrap the bowl with a spatula to make sure all the butter is properly whipped like it begged for it. Make sure the mixer is off when you scrape the bowl. Or you will mangle your one and only good spatula and it will take your four months to get a new one and you might break your mixer and then where will you be?
Add the egg yolk and vanilla, one at a time, making sure each it fully incorporated before adding the next, and continue beating for 3 minutes. The butter likes it like that.
Turn the mixer to low (low does not mean all the way up. Low means less than medium low, which is less than medium. SPEEDS MATTER. MIXERS COME WITH MORE THAN ONE SPEED FOR A REASON.) gradually add the confectioners' sugar, which you sifted. You sifted the confectioners sugar and now you're going to add it 1/4 cup or so at a time into the butter, and it will blend easily, because you sifted it like I told you to. Yes you did. You will add this gradually. You will not add it all at once. These are imperative commands.
Once added and mixed beat at medium speed, which is between medium-low and medium high and is still NOT ALL THE WAY UP. You can get stiff icing if you beat this too hard. Do you want stiff icing? You really fucking don't. Stop intermittently to scrape the sides of the bowl, until smooth and creamy. Eat it with a spoon to test this.
Dissolve the coffee or cocoa powder in 2 teaspoons of the hottest tap water. Do not use more water than that. You will ruin stuff. Mix it up in a small bowl and then add it to the icing, do not try and add it in bits.
On low speed (I have crazy eyes right now. You can't see them. But they are there) add the ROOM TEMPERATURE chocolate and coffee/cocoa to the butter mixture and mix until blended. Do not turn onto high. Do not whip it. You do not want stiff icing. Stiff if for things that are not icing. Icing is meant to be smooth and soft and delicious. It should make precious little doe-eyes at you when you touch it, gently for the first time.
Okay, now, take about half the icing into another bowl and add a bit of water to it. Just a 1-3 teaspoons 5-10 ml until it's a bit thinner than your other icing. This will be used as the crumb coat which I will talk about in a second.
ICE, ICE, BABY
Place 1 layer of your cake flat side up, on a flat plate or cake pedestal, whatever you have handy. It helps if you put the cake on what you're going to be keeping it in, because ones this thing is iced it's really hard to move a cake. You can clean serving platters.
With a knife or an offset spatula (I highly recommend the latter) spread the top with the thicker froasting.
Do not use a rubber spatula. Do not use a rubber anything. Metal makes cleaner lines and the icing won't just stick to the rubber and make everything look of fail. A butter knife will do, if you must, but do not use a rubber spatula. Offset spatulas are your friends. You love offset spatulas. Anyways, spread the top of that layer with frosting (when spreading icing, put a blob of icing into the center of the cake, and then spread, not lifting the knife/spatula. It's less important with the filling layer, but still. Good practice.) evenly as you can, and put the second layer on top, rounded side up.
Then, before you do anything, make sure the cake is compressed. Not smashed, but that the second layer is good and steady on the bottom layer. I tend to do this with a plate or a cake circle, whatever you have handy, just place it on top, push down gently so there aren't any air bubbles. Gently. Hulk No Smash.
Okay. So. That done, you're going to want to first crumb coat your cake with the slightly thinner icing. You do it like this. Watch that video. It shows you hand skills, which I can't, with text.
Crumb coating is important. You want to crumb coat, even if you don't do anything fancy, because otherwise you'll have cake bits everywhere and they'll dry up and you will have dried up cake bits all over you cake and no one wants dried up, mummified disemboweled bits of cake. I realize the lady in the video is using pre-packed icing. MAKE THE ICING BY HAND. When you're a professional cake decorator with access to actually good icing and you're shoving out cakes like you mean it, then you can think about pre-made icing. But I will still cry. I care far more about making everything from scratch then basically anyone else. My head Chef makes muffins from a box. It hurts my soul. It hurts it so much.
If you want, at this point, you can decorate however you feel. If you have piping tips, them pipe something on them. I assume if you have piping tips you know how to use them. If you don't, then you can make a quick decorating cone out a parchment paper (parchment paper is wonderful. You should get some. It is wonderful.) like so. I know a lot of people use plastic baggies to decorate cakes, but, for me, more often then not the seams explode and then I get shit everywhere, or I cut the hole at the end too big, because I'm faintly helpless and I have piping tips. You could use whipped cream, or an extra icing you have, or whatever.
You can also just take a chocolate bar and a vegetable peeler and shave chocolate curls on there. Here's a video to show you how to do that. Listen to this man. This man speaks truths. Chocolate curls make everything look better. You put this shit on cheesecake and they'll honestly think you got it from a bakery. Garnish matters. We eat first with the eyes, my friends. That's why you watch Food Network like it's porn.