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:
- 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.
- Gather all of your ingredients and tools in one place. This makes it easy to follow a recipe you’re unfamiliar with.
- Measure accurately! Baking is like chemistry so accuracy matters.
- 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.
