I want to become a better baker, especially now that the weather is changing and it’s getting cold outside. I’ve baked cakes before, but always from a box mix. I decided it was time to change that! I enrolled in a class on Skillshare called The Art Of Baking: A Beginners Guide. It has lots of good tips and recipes for the basics: cakes, cookies, bread, and pastry. When I finished the class I felt ready for my first chocolate cake. I followed the recipe on the back of a bag of Ghirardelli cocoa powder and frosted it with chocolate buttercream. It was really good! Some things I learned:

1. Read through the entire recipe before you begin. You don’t want to be surprised by an ingredient or tool you don’t have on hand.
2. Gather all of your ingredients and tools in one place. This makes it easy to follow a recipe you’re unfamiliar with.
3. Measure accurately! Baking is like chemistry so accuracy matters.
4. Make sure your oven temperature is correct, you may need to buy a separate oven thermometer. It took much longer than the recipe called for for my cake to come out, I have a feeling my oven temperature is off.

In the end I found that baking a chocolate cake from scratch really isn’t that much more difficult than a box mix.

Ghirardelli Grand Fudge Cake
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup softened butter
1 3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs
1 1/3 cups milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and lightly flour two 9″ cake pans.

Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and set aside.

In a large bowl cream butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy.

Reduce speed and add vanilla and eggs one at a time.

Alternately add flour mixture and milk while mixing on low speed. Continue to mix until smooth.

Pour into prepared pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.