Celebration Chocolate Cake

On Tuesday we celebrated one month of having our granddaughter Rose in our lives. We had a lot to be happy about, as she is a sweet, mellow, beautiful baby. So we baked a homemade chocolate cake with glossy, rich chocolate frosting.  Then we told her how wonderful she was and how delicious the cake tasted. She cried a little bit, but we’re pretty sure she was shedding tears of joy.

Ever since the September issue of Food & Wine had arrived at our house, my daughter Ellen and I had been captivated by the gorgeous chocolate cake on the cover. Called “Mom’s Chocolate Cake,” and labeled “The Best Chocolate Cake You’ll Ever Make,” it is a recipe shared by Marci Kiesel, a Test Kitchen Supervisor at Food & Wine. Kiesel obtained the recipe from a friend, who got the recipe from her mother. Ellen and I decided to make the cake together. Mom recipes really hit a chord for us these days.

The Cake

The ingredients for the cake are regulars in my pantry—sugar, eggs, butter, vanilla, flour, leaveners, and chocolate. In this case, unsweetened chocolate. While the original recipe called for 8-inch cake pans, I had 9-inch pans, so I prepared them and baked the cakes for a shorter period of time.

The preparation for both the moist cake and its sumptuous frosting includes boiling ingredients, a step that’s not part of my usual cake routine. For the cake layers, I created a sugar syrup by boiling water and sugar. That warm mixture melted the butter and chocolate. After it had cooled to the right temperature, vanilla and the sifted dry ingredients went in. Even though the technique was new, the steps were easy to follow, and the cake did turn out to be chocolate-y heaven in a pan.

While the cake layers cooled, we started on the frosting.

The Frosting

The cake’s frosting began with heating cream and sugar for a while over the stove and then using it to melt butter and more chocolate. Placing the warm mixture over a bowl of ice water and beating it for a few minutes created a rich, glossy frosting that went smoothly onto the cake.

While we’re calling this dessert Celebration Chocolate Cake, it is fitting that its original name was Mom’s Chocolate Cake. After all, we are also reveling in the fact that Ellen crossed the milestone of being a mother for a month. I became a first-time grandmother, and Yoni’s mother welcomed her first granddaughter. Two great grandmothers are also rejoicing. We’ll hail all the father figures at a future birthday.

Little Rose is such a lovely blossom of a baby that we don’t think life could get any better.

But adding chocolate to the end of our day was a great way to say how thankful we are to celebrate this new life.

Celebration Chocolate Cake

Sunnyside Cook

Dawn Dobie

Moist deeply chocolate layers beneath a thick, creamy frosting make a cake just right for those special days.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 30 minutes mins

Total Time 2 hours hrs

Servings 10

Ingredients

  

Cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour plus more for dusting pans
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups water
• 4 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate roughly chopped
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter plus more for greasing pans
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs lightly beaten

Chocolate Frosting

• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/3 cups heavy cream
• 6 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions

 

For the cake:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) round cake pans. Cut rounds of parchment paper to fit into bottoms of pans and place inside.
• Set up stand mixer.
• In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
• Combine granulated sugar and water in a medium saucepan and place over high heat. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
• Transfer sugar syrup from saucepan to bowl of stand mixer. Add chopped chocolate and butter. Allow to stand for about 15 minutes, until the temperature has lowered to 150 degrees F, stirring occasionally. Stir in vanilla.
• Add eggs to the mixture in the bowl and beat for about 10 seconds on medium speed.
• Keeping beaters on medium speed, add flour mixture to chocolate base and beat for about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
• Divide the batter evenly between the two cake pans. Bake for about 22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean.
• Cool cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 25 minutes, then remove from pans. Remove the parchment paper. Allow cake layers to cool an additional hour before frosting.

For the frosting:

• Combine the sugar and cream in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring every now and then. Once the mixture has come to a boil, reduce the heat to low and cook on simmer for about 6 minutes, until the liquid reduces a bit.
• Pour the hot mixture into a medium bowl and add the butter, chocolate, vanilla extract, and salt. Let this mixture stand for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until all the components have melted.
• Set the medium bowl of frosting inside a larger bowl that is filled with water and ice cubes. Use a hand-held mixer to beat the frosting on medium speed, scraping the sides thoroughly from time to time with a rubber spatula. Beat until the mixture thickens and becomes glossy, 6-10 minutes (mine took 10).
• Remove the frosting bowl from the ice water bowl and frost the cake layers right away.
• Place 4-inch wide strips of parchment paper around the edges of the cake plate you want to use (to protect the plate from frosting smudges). Place a single layer of cake on top of the cake plate. Using an offset metal spatula, spread just over 1 cup of the frosting evenly over the top of that layer. Put the second layer atop the bottom one and spread the remaining frosting over the top and sides of the entire cake. Carefully remove the parchment paper strips.

Notes

Cake can be made a day ahead of time.  Store at room temperature in covered cake dish.

Recipe adapted from “Mom’s Chocolate Cake” by Marcia Kiesel in Food & Wine September 2018 httpss://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/moms-chocolate-cake