Hershey's "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" Chocolate Cake
My parents finally decided to buy a stand mixer last month! - Dad loves to be part of the baking fun, but he got tired of mixing/kneading because too much strength was necessary.
And so I started on my very first cake!
Recipe adapted from Hersheys.com
Makes 8-10 servings
Time taken Prep: 30 mins Bake: 40 mins
Ingredients (Cake)
1.5 cups sugar
1.75 cups all-purpose flour
0.75 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
0.5 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
"PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING (recipe follows)
Method (Cake)
Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 20cm square baking pan.
Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
Bake 40 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING.
Ingredients (Frosting)
0.5 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
1 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
2.1 cups powdered sugar
0.5 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Method (Frosting)
Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency.
Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.
Results
I had the oven preheated at 350°F. When I placed the batter into the oven, I did not realize that the temperature was changed to 410°F. The strange thing was that even though the temperature was higher than indicated in recipe, my cake still took a longer time to be done.
The bottom of the cake cracked...
I had misread the instructions and removed the cake from the pan for the first cooling. Perhaps that's why the cake cracked
The icing was slightly too sweet even though I had reduced the amount of sugar. Hence I topped up the Cocoa powder. The icing had a pretty good consistency though!
Refrigerated the cake for a few hours before trying. The cake is a little bit too dense and I'm not sure why I could taste the 'soda'.
The cake was not very sweet so it was a good balance with the sweet frosting.
Note
Perhaps a little less sugar for the frosting?
Read somewhere that it is important not to overmix the floor. Otherwise the cake may sink too much (hence dense) after rising.