Chocolate Cake From Scratch

Not a rec­om­mend­ed serv­ing suggestion.

  • Ingre­di­ents!
  • 1 ¾ cups all-pur­pose flour
  • ¾ cup unsweet­ened cocoa powder 
  • 1 ½ tsp. bak­ing powder
  • 1 ½ tsp. bak­ing soda
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 2 cups white gran­u­lat­ed sugar 
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup milk 
  • ½ cup veg­etable oil
  • 2 tsp. vanil­la extract
  • 1 cup boil­ing water
  • Tools!
  • Stand mix­er (not strict­ly nec­es­sary but it helps)

Wait a Sec: Boiling Water?

Yep! There are sev­er­al good rea­sons why:

  1. Boil­ing water “blooms” the cocoa, releas­ing its full aro­ma and flavor
  2. Boil­ing water makes for a smoother, more homo­ge­neous bat­ter by ful­ly dis­solv­ing the cocoa and sugar
  3. Boil­ing water helps ful­ly acti­vate the bak­ing soda and bak­ing pow­der for a full rise 
  4. And final­ly, ful­ly dis­solv­ing the cocoa and sug­ar thins the bat­ter, which in turn makes sure it bakes up as moist and ten­der as possible.

I rec­om­mend boil­ing the water in your microwave in a glass mea­sur­ing cup, then pour­ing it into the bat­ter while it’s in a stand mix­er at its low­est speed to avoid any splash­ing. Once you’ve poured it all in, you can increase the speed for 15 to 30 sec­onds to make it’s ful­ly mixed, then imme­di­ate­ly pour into your cake pan(s) and pop it into the oven right away.

Trust me: It’s well worth the extra effort!

Directions

Pre­heat oven to 350° F.

Com­bine flour, cocoa, bak­ing pow­der, and bak­ing pow­der in a bowl and whisk together.

Add eggs, milk, veg­etable oil, and vanil­la; stir until mix­ture is free of lumps.

Care­ful­ly add boil­ing water (see above) and stir until it’s well com­bined and the bat­ter has thinned out and has no lumps.

Pour into pan(s) and bake at 350° F. for 30 to 35 min­utes, until a wood­en tooth­pick or skew­er insert­ed into the cen­ter comes out clean.

For lay­er cake pans, check every few min­utes, start­ing at about 20 min­utes, until the skew­er comes out clean.

For a Bundt pan, start check­ing the cake every few min­utes at around 30 min­utes. Be sure to use a skew­er long enough to reach the bot­tom of the pan. 

When the cake is ready, remove from the oven. Let cool at least 30 min­utes before remov­ing the cake from pan or pans.