Beatty’s Chocolate Cake is the best chocolate cake that I have ever had. I made this cake a few years ago and ever since then I have been looking for a chance to make it again. I decided to make this cake for Todd’s Birthday which was on August 22nd. This recipe is practically fool-proof. I was amazed about how easy it was to make such a delicious cake from scratch. Making a cake from scratch is so much better than using a box of cake mix. If you have always use a boxed mix, I really encourage you to give this recipe a shot.
Ina Garten uses freshly brewed coffee in this recipe to bring out the chocolate flavor of the cake. This recipe results in an incredibly moist, fluffy, and flavorful chocolate cake. Ina recommends icing the cake with a Chocolate Buttercream, but I never was a fan of chocolate icing on chocolate cake (nor am I a fan of vanilla icing on vanilla cake). So I chose to ice my cake with Vanilla Buttercream icing…which I also made from scratch using a recipe for Classic Vanilla Buttercream that I found on Savory Sweet Life. Homemade icing is also much better than the stuff that you will find in the jar in the baking isle of the food store. Everyone was a big fan of both the cake and the icing. It will be hard to eat boxed cake and icing again.
Beatty’s Chocolate Cake
This recipe comes from Ina Garten. It is quite possibly the best chocolate cake I have ever had and certainly the best that I have ever made. Her recipe calls for two 8″ cake pans. However, I only had 9″ cake pans and the cake still came out fabulous. Her recipe also calls for vegetable oil. I never really use vegetable oil so I just substituted in canola oil which I usually have on hand. This slight variation probably does not have too much of an effect on the result. Lastly, as I mentioned above, I made Vanilla Buttercream icing. If you would rather follow in Ina’s footsteps, then you can make her Chocolate Buttercream icing.
Yield: 1 8 or 9″ cake (8 servings) Prep Time: 30 minutes Cook Time: 35 minutes
Ingredients
- Butter, for greasing the pans
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
- 2 cups sugar
- 3/4 cups good cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup buttermilk, shaken
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
- 2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee
- Vanilla Buttercream, recipe follows
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 8-inch x 2-inch round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pans.
- Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined.
- In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.
- Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely
- Place 1 layer, flat side up, on a flat plate or cake pedestal. With a knife or offset spatula, spread the top with frosting. Place the second layer on top, rounded side up, and spread the frosting evenly on the top and sides of the cake.
Classic Vanilla Buttercream
[from Savory Sweet Life]
This recipe uses the basic ingredients: powdered sugar, butter, vanilla and milk. It is really important that you do not melt the butter. You want softened butter so you can make nice and fluffy buttercream icing. Click on to Savory Sweet Life’s blog to check out her post on her icing. She provides so many helpful and informative tips!
Yield: 2.5 cups (perfect amount to ice cake) Prep Time: 2 minutes Cook Time: 3 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened (but not melted!) Ideal texture should be like ice cream.
- 3-4 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar, SIFTED
- 1/4 teaspoon table salt
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- up to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream
- Beat butter for a few minutes with a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed.
- Add 3 cups of powdered sugar and turn your mixer on the lowest speed (so the sugar doesn’t blow everywhere) until the sugar has been incorporated with the butter.
- Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt, and 2 tablespoons of milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add remaining sugar.
- *If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add remaining milk 1 tablespoons at a time.
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