National Chocolate Cake Day

January 27th is chocolate cake day. So enjoy some chocolate cake tomorrow!

My favorite chocolate cake recipe is only about 4 or so years old. We had recently moved to Pennsylvania and, for some reason, I was dying to have chocolate cake. Only we didn’t have any butter at all. So I did some searching online and found this recipe. I wish I could remember where I found it.

Since then it has become my go-to chocolate cake recipe, with a couple of minor tweaks. It’s light and moist and is fabulous as both cake and cupcake. I even made it into a two layer bundt cake once and filled it with buttercream frosting. My mom is gluten-free and this recipe worked perfectly with her special flour, turning out moist and not too crumbly.

It is also the only chocolate cake my son will eat.

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then mix the dry ingredients. Blend the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt to a nice light brown color.

Now it’s time to add most of the wet ingredients. Add the eggs, oil, vanilla extract, and 1 cup of hot chocolate.

I like to control how chocolatey my hot chocolate is, so I opt for using Ovaltine instead of the packets, but feel free to make your hot chocolate however you like it. For the Ovaltine, I add 4 heaping spoonfuls, or probably about 8 tablespoons, to some hot milk. Make sure it isn’t too hot before adding it to the mixing bowl, otherwise you might cook your eggs.

Once it’s mixed, add the rest of the hot chocolate for a rather soupy batter.

Time to fill the pans! Usually, I make cupcakes for my son, but I miss making 2 layer cakes. Here, I used 2 8 inch round pans, lined with parchment paper and liberally greased.

Bake 35-40 minutes or 30-35 minutes for cupcakes.

Let cool 10-15 minutes, then loosen with a knife and turn out onto a cooling rack. This cake is on the crumbly side, so don’t move it. Just let it cool completely and then it should stay in 1 piece.

Recipe

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup oil
• 2 cups hot chocolate, warm

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line pans with parchment paper and grease.
2. Mix sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
3. Add eggs, oil, vanilla extract, and 1 cup of hot chocolate. Beat until well blended.
4. Add the rest of the hot chocolate and blend.
5. Divide the batter between the pans and bake 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.