Chocolate Cake
Submitted by bocca on August 21, 2002 at 8:20 am

DESCRIPTION
chocolate cake

SUMMARY
Yield 0 File under cakes

INSTRUCTIONS
Cook's Illustrated july/august 1994
with my variations

Sour Cream Fudge layer cake with choc butter icing

1 cup Hersehy's type cocoa
1 cup hot stronge coffee ( if you don't make coffee, buy a cup at Tim Hortons or Starbucks two stronge coffee places)
1/2 cup sour cream
2 sticks unsalted butter
2 tsp. vanilla
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs, room temp.
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour, measured by the dip and sweep
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

350 oven grease two 8 by 1 1/2 inch round baking pans with shortening. Line pan bottoms with waxed paper or parchment paper, grease paper dust with flour and tap out extra.
Mix cocoa and hot coffee (it has to be almost boiling hot for the cocoa to release all its flavor) mixing until smooth. Cool to room temp then whisk in sour cream and vanilla.
Beat butter in mixer set at medium high #4 on kitchenaid, beating until smooth and shiny about 30 seconds. Gradually sprinkle in sugar and beat until light and fluffy and almost white, 3 to 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating 1 full minute after adding each one.
Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl. With Mixer on lowest speed, add about 1/3 of dry ingredients to batter, followed immediately by about 1/3 of cocoa mixture, mixing until almost incorporated. Repeat process twice more. Scraping bowl sides with rubber spatula. Return mixer to low speed and beat until batter looks satiny, about 15 seconds longer.
Divide batter evenly between pans. with rubber spatula smooth batter out to edges of pans and smooth top. Bake until cakes feel firm in center when lightly pressed or skewer comes out clean with just a crumb or two adhering about 25 to 30 minutes ( I check at 20 mins to start off). Transfer pans to wire racks let cool for ten minutes. Run knife around perimeter of each pan, invert cakesonto racks, and peel off paper liners. Reinvert cakes onto additional racks (why I don't know). Cool completly before icing.
Choc butter icing

Melt 9 ounces semisweet or bitter sweet chocolate and 8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter in bowl set over pan of almost simmering water. Stir in 1/3 cup corn syrup. Set bowl of choc mixture over a large bowl of ice water, stir occasionally unti lthe frosting is just thick enough to spread. Frost and layer cake as you normally would. I like to add supreme raspberry jam to the layer and put some in the center of the cake (no frositng under top layer when you put jam on). Frost or pipe frosting around jam. If you put this in the fridge it becomes more fudgey even though they did not reccomend it. Also the extensive and through directions are theres, not mine. ENJOY