- Hey, I'm John Cannell, and today on "Preppy Kitchen,"
we're making a decadent, delicious chocolate cake.
So, let's get started.
First off, set your oven to 350 so it's nice and hot.
Grab two 9-inch baking pans, spray with baking spray
or some butter.
The parchment paper is your guarantee
that the cakes will come out neatly
with no cracks, no tears.
Now into a large bowl I'm adding two cups, or 240 grams,
of all-purpose flour.
It's very important that you don't add too much flour,
so either use a scale, or fluff the flour up
and sprinkle it into your measuring cup, then level it off.
If you just scoop the flour up with a measuring cup,
and level it off you're gonna add 40, 50, 60, 70% more flour
and your cake's not gonna be nice and soft and moist.
It'll be, like, dry and bready.
Two cups of granulated sugar, that's 400 grams.
Perfect, the sugar is gonna make everything sweet, of course
but it also makes your cake soft.
If you reduce the sugar in a cake, yes, it'll be less sweet,
but it's gonna get harder and breadier.
It's gonna lose that wonderful soft consistency we love.
My chocolate cake needs chocolate,
so half a cup or 50 grams cocoa powder.
Today, I'm using a natural cocoa powder,
but you can use a Dutch processed as well.
To fluff things up, you need leviner, so,
one and a half teaspoons of baking powder,
and one and a half teaspoons of baking soda.
Baking soda needs an acid to react to,
otherwise it doesn't work as well.
So., the acid we have here is the cocoa powder.
Natural cocoa powder is slightly acidic.
It'll react with the baking powder, soda,
and give us a puffier cake.
And, finally, for some balance,
I want half a teaspoon of kosher salt,
and if I'm ever making a dessert,
it needs to have some salt for balance.
You cannot taste things unless the salt is there.
It doesn't have a flat, sweet note.
All right, give this a sift.
If you're wondering why we sifted, this is why.
All rocks of cocoa powder inside.
Sometimes any ingredient can clump up, even baking powder,
but the cocoa is the main culprit,
and nobody wants to bite into, like,
a little nugget of pure cocoa powder, no.
Press those through.
My scale is done.
(scale slides on counter top)
Grab a whisk, and we're gonna mix this up.
So, just give that a really good mix.
The sifting started the mixing,
but now you want to get everything nicely distributed.
If you've ever had a cake that had this weird little divot,
so, like, a crater, guess what didn't get distributed?
The baking powder or soda.
So, that's why part of it just didn't rise up.
We want every bite to be perfectly puffy,
and a nice combination of cake and buttercream.
(whisk taps glass bowl)
Nice and mixed up.
(bowl slides across countertop)
Onto the wet ingredients.
So, grab another large bowl and you have a choice here.
You can either use one cup of boiling water,
which I'm gonna do today
because I have little children who are gonna have this cake.
Or, you can use one cup of hot coffee.
It could be an espresso mixture or whatever you'd like.
The coffee will really let you taste the chocolate more.
It'll amplify the chocolate flavor
but I'm not gonna do that today
because Lochlin and George have enough energy as it is.
I set some water to boil in a kettle.
We'll use that in just a moment.
But now in a medium bowl
I'm adding half a cup of veggie oil.
If you're wondering why we're using vegetable oil,
it's because it'll keep our cake pillowy soft,
even if it's coming straight out of the fridge.
If you're using butter,
it'll be very hard until it's completely room temperature.
Also, the taste of butter will be lost in a chocolate cake.
To the oil, I'm adding one cup, or 240 mils, of whole milk,
and one table.
(horn blows)
All right, and one tablespoon of vanilla extract.
I'm using the last of this batch.
Whisk that up until it's nice and smooth.
But, don't forget as I almost did, to add two large eggs.
Room temperature please.
One (cracks egg) and two.
I'm such a sucker for this light blue eggshell color.
Oh my gosh, so pretty.
Okay, now give that a whisk.
The eggs should have gone in first, but it's totally fine.
It does not matter at all, as long as it's nicely whisked.
(whisk taps glass bowl)
Okay grab that dry mixture back.
(bowl taps countertop)
And, we have two things to do.
First off, we're gonna add our wet mixture in,
(whisk taps glass bowl)
but do not forget we have that boiling water at hand too.
Whisk that up until it is almost combined.
It's okay to see a couple streaks of flour,
hither and thither.
I'm reading "The Wind in the Willows," with my kids,
like, every night we read a few pages of it,
and I loved that book as a child,
that was like one of my core memories,
but I forgot how 19th century the language is.
They literally do say hither and thither,
and so many other words.
It's like an exercise and SAT words.
(claps hands together) This looks delicious.
But, we're gonna add one cup of boiling water,
and that water is going to add more moisture,
and also activate the cocoa powder,
and let it just get more intensely chocolatey.
Measure that out, I can't eyeball that.
Alright, I'm gonna pour this in as I whisk.
And here, the batter will be runny, don't worry about that.
All that means is it's gonna be a magical, delicious batter.
This is similar to a devil's food cake.
It's giving some devil's food vibes.
See, super runny. But, that's okay.
So, everything is ready.
It's time to divide this evenly in your pans.
I'm pulling my scale back because it's my best friend,
(laughs) and it'll tell me exactly how much batter
is gonna be divided.
If you wanna eyeball it, just use a toothpick,
and you can kind of use it like a little depth meter.
It'll tell you exactly how much there is height-wise.
Alright, into the pan.
I'm making this cake with two 9-inch layers,
but you could make it with three 6-inch layers,
or three 8-inch layers.
The 6-inch layers will be really thick.
If you make three 8-inch layers,
they'll be about an inch thick.
So, thinner, but still delicious.
Okay, It's about 700 grams per pan.
Make sure you zero your scale out,
before you add the batter in.
My cakes are ready to go into the oven.
350 for about 35 minutes
or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
And, don't worry about using cake strips.
This batter is so thin it doesn't need them.
Here you go.
(gentle strumming)
(oven door closes)
My cake layers are cooling,
so now we're gonna make an amazing, delicious,
chocolate buttercream, starting with three sticks,
or one and a half cups, or 338 grams of unsalted butter,
at room temperature.
This should be nice and soft,
so I can use my finger and press in.
It goes really easily, and it's gonna cream up very quickly.
Cream this on medium for about 30 seconds,
just until it's silky smooth.
And, today I'm using my stand mixer
with a paddle attachment,
but you can definitely use a hand mixer if desired.
(mixer whirs)
Let that cream up, and in the meantime,
I have six cups, or 680 grams, of sifted powdered sugar,
no lumps for your cake.
And, my cocoa powder is ready to use.
Hmm, this is natural cocoa powder.
I'm actually going to use a Dutch processed one,
just so it's extra dark and chocolatey looking.
If you use natural cocoa powder, it's gonna taste great,
but it'll be a light chocolate color,
which bothers me for some reason.
So, that's much better.
Look at this difference in color.
It'll be a nice, dark, rich, fudgy buttercream.
Of course, this is pure rocks of cocoa powder, look at this.
So we're definitely gonna need to sift this out.
And, I'm gonna use a quarter cup, or about 25 grams.
If you want to use more, you can use more.
It's totally to-taste.
All right, into my sifter.
Don't make a mess, don't make a mess, don't make a mess.
There we go.
(measuring cup taps sifter)
I'm just gonna sift this out
so there's no lumps of cocoa powder.
(measuring cup taps sifter)
That's all done.
Cream this up one more time on low,
so the cocoa powder mixes in
without creating a giant messy cloud.
And, once it's incorporated
we're gonna scrape the bowl down.
This looks like chocolate deliciousness to me,
but for you, plain old, sad butter.
Mix it up, scrape it down,
and look at this unmixed nonsense.
That's horrible, we never want that.
Whenever you make a frosting,
I hope you play with the recipe a little bit.
The recipe is like a standard,
you know it's gonna be delicious,
but you can make it your own.
For example, you could swap out half a cup of butter
for half a cup, or four ounces, of cream cheese.
(kisses fingertips) It'll be delicious.
I would definitely add less cream though
'cause that's adding water in.
You could use some sour cream, sub that in for the butter,
or for the cream, and then you could add spices to it too.
Mexican hot chocolate buttercream, cinnamon, little cayenne.
Ooh, it's gonna be really good.
(mixer whirs)
One thing that's non-negotiable for this is the salt,
I'm adding in a generous quarter teaspoon.
I like it a little bit extra salty.
It's gonna make the biggest difference.
It'll really let the chocolate pop.
You could also add in a quarter teaspoon of espresso powder
if you're going the coffee route,
to amp up the chocolate flavor.
Okay, the time has come for us to add the powdered sugar in.
I would add a cup or two at a time,
(scoop taps glass bowl)
and mix on low. You don't wanna have a giant mess.
There we go.
As the powdered sugar mixes in,
you can alternate with like a tablespoon or so of milk
or cream, it's up to you.
Here, or sour cream.
And, by the way, if you're in the spirit,
this milk doesn't have to be milk.
This milk could be brandy, dark rum, or whiskey.
It's a totally different vibe
but you can incorporate any flavor you want.
So, whatever liquid you want to use is gonna work here.
It could even be coffee,
and you would make it like more of a mocha cake.
Ooh, this is looking really nice.
Keep going with the powdered sugar.
(mixer whirs)
More powdered sugar, more liquid, whatever you want.
And, as you go, make sure you scrape the bowl down.
The top is gonna be sweet and chocolatey,
and the bottom is gonna be totally just pure cocoa powder,
and butter with salt.
So, you really wanna have a nice even mixture
so every bite of the cake is uniform.
Scrape the bowl down and remove everything from the beater
because stuff collects there,
and it doesn't get mixed properly, especially the top.
These are things I wish someone had told me
when I was a little baby baker,
or maybe my mom did and I didn't listen.
Last third of the powdered sugar, mix on low, add the milk.
A lot of people complain that American buttercream,
which this is, is like too sweet, and it's grainy,
and gritty, and dense. That can definitely be the case.
It actually has to do with how you whip the butter
and sugar together,
and how you how much liquid you're adding.
A lot of it's not made correctly
but a chocolate American buttercream is gonna be delicious.
You can sub out some of the butter for sour cream,
for cream cheese.
You can do, like, so many different things to it,
but adding the salt in, adding the milk in
is gonna make it creamy and perfectly balanced.
If you're totally set against it, you know, like,
it's not for you, make a Swiss or Italian buttercream.
Click up here for my Swiss buttercream video.
And then, just add in melted chocolate to taste.
Oh my gosh, it is perfection.
All my sugar's incorporated.
I'm gonna add one teaspoon of vanilla in.
It's optional, but it's a lovely depth of flavor.
And the last little bit of milk.
So, I'm using a full quarter-cup here.
Always make your chocolate buttercream a little more slack
than you think it should be, because it sets up.
The cocoa powder just absorbs liquid,
and it kind of just will set quicker than you imagine.
We're gonna mix this on medium for one minute
until it's light and fluffy.
And, in the meantime I'll grab a cake plate,
get my cake layers, and we're gonna decorate this up.
My cake layers have cooled completely.
They're pillowy soft and they smell amazing.
Invert this onto a cake plate,
(pan smacks glass) like that.
Remove the paper, don't forget. Very important.
And, now we're gonna add about one cup of frosting
right in the middle.
Oh my gosh, this looks so good.
Spread the frosting out into an even layer,
moving it all the way to the side.
For the middle,
it doesn't matter as much because no one can see it.
Pop the next layer on, just like that.
Now cover with the remaining frosting.
If you're frosting, is it all bubbly or set up,
just run your mixer for 30 seconds,
and you can add in an extra tablespoon of cream or milk
if desired.
Smooth it out and work the frosting down the side.
And here, you can decorate this cake however you'd like,
totally up to you.
You'll use every last drop of frosting from this.
So do not snack too much,
just one spoonful is all you're allowed.
Once covered completely, swoop to your heart's content,
or you can smooth it out, top with sprinkles,
chocolate chips, chopped chocolate, cacoa nibs,
anything you love.
The nice thing about swooping frosting
is you can create the illusion of abundance,
and like so much frosting
with all that depth that you're working in,
even though it's almost paper thin in spots.
So, you're using a proper amount of frosting.
It's not excessive, but it looks so beautiful.
Give your cake a slice and it's ready to enjoy.
(gentle strumming)
That is silky, fudgy, but it's still light.
The cake is fluffy, but so moist.
It's an amazing chocolate cake.
So, I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
And, if you like this video,
check out my chocolate playlist.
(upbeat plucky instrument)