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Best Chocolate Cake Recipe 780 | Umami Girl
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4.78 from 22 votes

Buttermilk Chocolate Cake

This buttermilk chocolate cake is the only chocolate recipe you'll need. It makes a large, satisfying, very chocolatey cake with just the right amount of sweetness. Once they've tried it, people request this cake all the time.
Prep Time15 minutes
Cook Time1 hour 10 minutes
Total Time1 hour 25 minutes
Course: Cakes
Cuisine: American
Keyword: buttermilk chocolate cake
Calories: 387kcal
Author: Carolyn Gratzer Cope

Ingredients

  • 3 ounces (85 grams) bittersweet chocolate, chopped
  • 1 ½ cups (355 ml) hot brewed coffee
  • 3 large eggs
  • ¾ cup (177 ml) vegetable oil
  • 1 ½ cups (355 ml) well-shaken buttermilk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 3 cups (600 grams) sugar
  • 2 ½ cups (300 grams) all-purpose flour
  • 1 ½ cups (120 grams) unsweetened natural cocoa powder
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • ¾ teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon fine sea salt

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 300° F. (Yup, just 300!) Spray two 10-inch-round cake pans with cooking spray. (See note 1 below.) Cut out two circles of parchment paper to cover the bottoms of the pans. Place them in the greased pans and spray those, too.
  • Combine the hot coffee with the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl or glass measuring cup. Let sit for a few minutes and then stir until the chocolate is completely melted.
  • In a very large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the eggs until thickened a bit and lightened in color, about 4 minutes. Add the coffee-chocolate mixture, oil, buttermilk, and vanilla and beat on low until well combined.
  • Into a large bowl, sift together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients all at once and mix on low just until well combined.
  • Pour half the batter into each pan and bake until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, approximately 60 to 70 minutes.
  • Let the cake cool completely in the pans on cooling racks. Then run a knife around the sides of each pan and turn out the layers. Remove the parchment. The cake is ready for frosting when completely cool.

Notes

  1. This recipe was originally written for two 10-inch round cake pans. I've found that most people don't own this size pan. If that's the case for you, you can use two 9-inch round cake pans and bake on the longer side. That's what I've done for these photos and the video. In 9-inch pans I bake for a full 70 minutes.
  2. In place of chopped bittersweet chocolate bars, I sometimes use bittersweet chocolate chips. That's a fine substitution in this recipe.
  3. For the cocoa powder, you can use any brand that's both unsweetened and natural (not Dutch-processed). Guittard, Scharffen Berger, Ghirardelli, and even Hershey's are all fine choices.
  4. If using a standard-size stand mixer, be very careful for sloshing. This is a large recipe, and especially at the early stages before adding the dry ingredients, the batter is very loose.
  5. I like to weigh the batter in the pans to make sure it's evenly divided. Each pan should get between 990 and 1(000 grams) of batter.
  6. We usually fill and frost this cake with our raspberry whipped cream. If you plan to use a denser frosting such as chocolate buttercream or ganache, you can ice the whole cake. It tends to shed crumbs, so you may want to use these pro cake decorator tips: You can freeze the cake layers (cooled completely, then wrapped well in plastic wrap and foil) and then defrost them slightly before assembling. This makes cakes easier to work with while also making them extra tender. Crumb-coat your cake: apply a very thin layer of frosting to lock in the crumbs, then place the cake in the fridge for 20 minutes or so before frosting completely.

Nutrition

Calories: 387kcal | Carbohydrates: 62.7g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 14.9g | Fiber: 3.4g