This basic chocolate cake recipe has been around for years. Our simplifications are in using a scale and chilling the icing skim coat. As we have said before, you really don’t need to sift and measure the cake flour: just weigh it.  And before you start mixing up the batter, weigh the mixing bowl. This will make it easier to divide the batter into two pans.

The cake

• 2 8-inch round cake pans
• buttered parchment paper
• 3 1-oz squares baking chocolate (unsweetened)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• ½ cup milk
• 1 beaten egg
• ½ cup shortening (or unsalted butter)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups sifted cake flour (224 g)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• 2/3 cup milk

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚ F
2. Butter the cake pans and line them with parchment as we show here. Butter the tops of the parchment, too.

1. Put the chocolate, 2/3 cup sugar, ½ cup milk and beaten egg in a saucepan. Cook slowly over medium heat until the mixture thickens and the chocolate melts. Set aside to cool.
2. Put the shortening in a mixing bowl and stir to soften. Beat in the 1 cup sugar. Add the 2 eggs one at a time and beat until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla.

1. Weigh out the flour and add the soda and salt and stir briefly.
2. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, alternating with the 2/3 cup milk.
3. Blend in the chocolate mixture.
4. Weigh the mixing bowl and the batter, subtract the weight of the empty mixing bowl, and divide by two.

1. Put one cake pan on the scale, set the tare to zero and add half the weight of the batter. IN our case the total batter weight 1146 g, so we put slightly under 573g in each cake pan. (Some batter will stick to the sides and the spoon, so allow for that. We went for about 560 g each.)
2. Bake in the 350˚ F oven for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
3. Let the pans cool on the stove or on a rack, and then release the cakes from the pans and let them cool.

Simple buttercream icing

• 2 lb confectioners sugar
• ½ pound (2 sticks) butter
• 2-3 Tb milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 squares unsweetened chocolate

1. Place the powdered sugar in a food processor
2. Add the butter cut into 1 Tb pieces
3. Pulse until smooth
4. Add enough milk to mix until smooth and spreadable
5. Add the vanilla
6. Take out about a quarter of the icing to a separate bowl
7. Melt the unsweetened chocolate at 50% power in a microwave for 1-2 minutes
8. Mix the chocolate into the quarter of the icing.
9. Place one cake layer on the cake pan or on a cake spinner platform.
10. Ice the top of that layer with the chocolate icing.
11. If the top layer is flared out, trim it with a knife do the sides are straight, and set it on top of the chocolate icing.
12. Mix about 2 Tb of icing with about ¼ cup milk until uniform. This is the icing wash for the skim coat.

1. Spread the skim coat on the top and sides of the cake and chill it in the refrigerator for half an hour. This will make a smooth surface to ice that won’t crumble when you spread the white icing.
2. After the cake is chilled, spread the white icing on the top and sides of the cake, using a spatula to make the sides smooth.
3. Return the cake to the refrigerator while you make the ganache.

 

Chocolate ganache

• 2 oz semisweet chocolate chips
• 2 oz bittersweet chocolate (or use a little less baking chocolate and some semisweet)
• ½ cup heavy cream
• ½ Tb honey
• ¼ tsp coarse salt
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Put all the chocolate in a heatproof bowl
2. Combine the cream, honey and salt in a saucepan.
3. Bring the cream to a boil, and pour over the chocolate.
4. Place the ganache in the refrigerator until it begins to firm up. If it gets too firm, you can remelt it in the microwave and start the chill again.
5. When the ganache is still just pourable, dribble or pour it over the chilled cake to make any pattern you like.
6. Serve with raspberries or strawberries.