Unbelievable Chocolate Cake

Ok friends, this cake is truly unbelievable.  I'm not a big cake maker, so I was expecting this to be a major let down, but boy was I wrong!  This was possibly the best cake I have ever eaten!  You might as well just cut a piece off and glue it straight onto my thighs because I have been eating all the leftovers.  The frosting does take some time because you have to let it completely cool before mixing in the butter, but it was worth it!

Here's my 2-year-old enjoying some for his 2nd birthday party this weekend:

Unbelievable Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:
*Makes two 8-inch or 9-inch cake layers or bake in 9 x 13 inch pan

• 1 ¼ cups unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 ½ cups all purpose flour
• 2 ½ cups sugar
• 2 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• 1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
• 2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
• 1 ¼ cups warm water
• 1 ¼ cups buttermilk
• ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

What you do:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (180 C), making sure the baking rack is in the middle of the oven. Prepare your cake pans by cutting out a piece of parchment or wax paper to line the bottom of the pan. Grease the pans, place the parchment or wax paper in the bottom of the pan and lightly grease again. Dust the pans with flour (or cocoa powder if you don’t want the white dusting on the finished cakes). Set the pans aside.

Using a fine mesh strainer, sift together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Add the eggs, yolk, warm water, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Mix on low speed (with a handheld mixer or in the bowl of an electric stand mixer) until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake the cakes for about 32-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean or with moist crumbs. Do not overbake! Remove the pans from the oven and set the pans on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Gently run a thin knife around the edges of the pans and unmold the cakes, removing the parchment paper liners from the bottom of the cakes. Let them cool completely, top sides ups, on a wire rack.

Trim the tops of the cake layers with a long serrated knife to make them level. Frost as desired (I highly recommend this life-changing frosting).


Recipe Source: Mel's Kitchen Cafe