Chocolate Cake...need I say more?

“There’s something satisfying about scooping flours into a measuring cup, cutting butter into small squares, inhaling a whiff of vanilla flavoring before adding it to dough. When I am anxious or wandering, all I need to do is bake, and I am home.”

I borrowed the excerpt above from Shauna James Ahern over at Gluten Free Girl. She has the gift of being able to put into words exactly how I am feeling and happens to be one of those special people that even though I’ve never actually met her, I feel as if she is a long time friend. And that is why I borrowed her thoughts about baking…they describe just how I feel when I get into the kitchen...I, too, feel like I am home. I just adore her and her blog…please check it out…you don’t need to have a gluten allergy to adore her recipes and her blog!

So My Sweets had a birthday last week - Yea!!! And all he wanted was chocolate cake (see a couple of posts ago…) So having put out a call to all of you for a yummy chocolate cake recipe, Anna of Maybe Just a Little Bite... shared her favorite recipe with me and it was a HUGE hit! Thank you, thank you , thank you dear Anna for sharing your foolproof recipe with me! My Sweets said it was the best he’s ever tasted! I have already added it to my recipe box and will be making it a lot in the future…and I definitely want to try it with peanut butter frosting as you had mentioned…YUM!!!! Here’s the recipe:

Hershey's Chocolate Cake

(via Anna at Maybe Just a Little Bite...)

2 cups sugar

1 ¾ cups flour

¾ cup cocoa

1 ½ tsp baking soda

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

½ cup vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup boiling water

Mix all ingredients, with the exception of boiling water. Then add water and pour batter into pans, (2 nine inch pans). Bake at 350 degrees for 30 – 35 minutes.

*I also made cupcakes and baked them at 350 degrees for 17 minutes (it made 24 by the way…) I topped them with the chocolate buttercream recipe below:

Hershey’s One Bowl Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

6 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
2-2/3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat butter in medium bowl. Add powdered sugar and cocoa alternately with milk, beating to spreading consistency (additional milk may be needed). Stir in vanilla.

We celebrated My Sweets birthday at work - he works as an engineer for one of the local television stations here in town and has the night shift (ugh!) - so I brought cake and cupcakes. By the time I remembered to take pictures the cake was already gobbled up :( So I was able to get pictures of only the cupcakes. I made two varieties: Chocolate with Chocolate Buttercream with little Chocolate Covered Cherries on top (same as cake, just picture the cherries placed on the outside edge of cake) and the second was my version of an Almond Joy cupcake with Vanilla-Almond Buttercream, Coconut and a Chocolate Dipped Almond on top. They were really fun and easy to make and everyone seemed to enjoy them - these were the only two left to photograph at the time and were quickly snatched up! LOL :)