Guest Post…Decadent Perfectly Chocolate Hershey’s Chocolate Cake
Last week I was whisked away to Milwaukee to meet the folks at Johnsonville. Since I knew I’d be gone, I arranged for a friend to do all of my work. Well…at least SOME of my work. In the past, I’ve always asked another food blogger to guest post, but this time, I reached out to my friend Alma – whom I’ve known since our days at Pizza Hut back in the early 1990s. (Shhh…we were the youngest employees EVER. Practically in diapers.) But anyway, she can BAKE. Not that you’d know it from her skinny hiney these days, but she can rock some chocolate. And lucky for me, she baked and photographed this decadent cake for me while I was gone. Give her a little love, will you? It’s her first food blog post – and I think she’d be great at it, don’t you? Thanks, Alma!
So….when Doughmesstic asked if I wanted to do a guest post on her blog, my first thoughts were—I’m not a famous food blogger, what do I know about it? But then I thought better. I eat. I bake. I love to eat and bake. My friends and I talk about food all the time, sometimes all day long. So that pretty much makes me an ok choice for an itty bitty guest spot…and here goes!
When I told my husband what I was doing, he asked which recipe I was going to share. I told him the cake. Which comes out “THE” cake. And even though I make lots of cakes: carrot, red velvet, all sorts of pound varieties, he knows automatically which particular cake I am going to do, based on the way I say it. I’m talking about Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake. And boy is it. This is a simple cake, it’s not fussy or complicated, it’s not even a complete show-stopper in the looks department when you get it frosted (unless you have mad skills in that area like SOMEONE around here). But oh, this cake. Whenever I want a really rich, chocolate-y, grand slam out of the park, tried and true cake, I make this one.
This is not a light, fluffy kind of cake. It’s incredibly moist, very dense and fudgy, and pretty dang rich.
Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake
- 2 C sugar
- 1 ¾ C all purpose flour
- ¾ C cocoa (you can use the Special Dark as well, although I’ve never tried it)
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 C milk
- ½ C vegetable oil
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 C boiling water (yes, really)
Preheat oven to 350-F. Grease and flour two 9 in. round baking pans. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour into pans.
Bake 30-35 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test. Cool for 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost with “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Frosting. 10 to 12 servings.
“Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Frosting
- 1 stick (1/2 C) butter
- 2/3 C cocoa
- 3 C powdered sugar
- 1/3 C milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating on medium speed to spreading consistency. Add more milk if needed. Stir in vanilla. Makes about two cups of frosting. Try to save some for the cake.
And now for my little notes and comments. This recipe mentions that the batter will be thin. It is. Very thin. The only thing I could think of to compare it to is canned tomato soup once you add the water and heat it. It’s that thin. 
Also, it says to use 2 9-inch cake pans. Even with that size, if you use all the batter it will run over in your oven. Chocolate cake smells great. Burning chocolate batter, not so much. You can
either bake some little ramekin size mini cakes with your leftover batter or you can eat/drink it. Not that I’ve ever done that. Ahem. This cake is sticky and moist. It’s what makes it taste so good, but it can also make it a pain to frost. It’s even difficult to do a crumb coat without tearing up the cake. I chill it in the fridge while I’m making the frosting and that seems to help. And most of the time I’ll make 1 ½ batches of the frosting, because I like a good coating and we think that’s the best part of most cakes around here. Even with all that, it’s totally worth it to try “THE” cake, at least once!!
I also know that Susan likes to tweak recipes, add different flavors, etc. I bet this cake would be really good with a hint of orange (think Cadbury Orange Crème Eggs–YUM) or maybe even espresso powder.
Hmmmm….
