Issue #156: An Easy, Versatile Chocolate Cake

A Popular Recipe You Can Make Your Own, Egg-Free Baking, Fool-Proof Fudge Frosting

I’m a vanilla person. When it comes to dessert, that is. My husband, Nate, a chocolate person, holds this against me. He says I may know a lot about food, but I don’t know anything about dessert.

It’s not that I don’t like chocolate things. Instead of dessert, I often just have a piece of good dark chocolate. But I find most chocolate cakes and even chocolate chip cookies one dimensional. Once I find a good one, I don’t feel a need to keep looking for another. Nate considers this my tragic flaw. Despite all the hours, ink, and electrons spent trying to find the absolute best chocolate cake or chocolate chip cookie recipe, in the end what you have is exactly what it is. I feel the same way about brownies. (Maybe Nate is right?)

This lack of curiosity about chocolate desserts—you could just say I’m easy to satisfy—likely comes from my mother, who was an excellent cook and baker, but who nevertheless had a smallish repertoire of desserts that included one coffee cake (Russian Sour Cream), one banana cake (from Mrs. Cooper), one date-nut cake (so moist and delicious), one cream puff (see Issue #154), and one chocolate cake—which was actually a recipe from my Aunt Josephine, a lifelong best friend, not a relative. I wrote about Aunt Josephine’s Sour Cream Chocolate Cake in Issue #40.

But because I married a chocolate guy, I’ve had to overcome my cocoa complacency and keep looking for chocolate things to make for him. By experimenting with recipes that use new techniques, call for unexpected ingredients, incorporate whole grains, I manage to keep myself interested in baking with chocolate.

Recently, I was heading out of town. And although I’ve always made sure Nate has what to eat at home when I’m away, now that we live in a place without any nearby restaurants to speak of nor much takeout, I feel a greater need to prep all his food before I go. I thought I’d make him a quick chocolate cake to eat his way through while I was gone. I Googled “chocolate snacking cake” to see what recipe the Universe would suggest.

A word about “snacking cakes.”

When did this become a thing? Unless someone is getting married, aren’t most cakes for snacking? Almost every cake my mother ever made was served in the pan, usually without icing, but sometimes with a dusting powdered sugar or a dollop of whipped cream to make it “fancy.” They were delicious. They were called “cakes.”

Now, there are whole books about snacking cakes. (A very good one is called simply Snacking Cakes by Yossy Arefi.)

Anyway, a recipe from the King Arthur website caught my eye. It was a respectable size for one person to consume over five-days (8-inch square), it baked in 30 minutes, it had an easy frosting that would help keep it moist while I was gone, and I had all the ingredients on hand—cocoa, flour, sugar, oil, coffee, and….um. Hmn. There were no eggs in the recipe. I read it again. Nope. If the headnote hadn’t said this was one of their most popular recipes of all time, their 2014 recipe of the year, I would have thought it was a mistake. Unlike most recipe sources on the Internet, I trust King Arthur and its test kitchens‚ which are now just a 20-minute drive from where we live.

bonniestern

A post shared by @bonniestern

I recalled a conversation I had many years ago with my dear friend and fellow home-cooking advocate Bonnie Stern (see @bonniestern). Someone had asked me for a recipe for a cake without eggs. I was stumped. I couldn’t come up with anything. This was before Google, before veganism went mainstream. Bonnie’s advice was to take any cake recipe and just leave out the eggs. Really?! Yes, she said. It will work fine.

I was incredulous. “Haven’t you ever accidentally left out the eggs while baking something?” Bonnie probed. Not that I recalled. Or if I had, I would have thrown the batter away. “Try it,” she said. I did. It worked.  

So, last week I made the popular and easy “King Arthur’s Original Cake Pan Cake.” (Clearly this recipe was devised before the “snacking cake” category took hold.) No eggs. No softening butter. No creaming. Easy peasy.

In addition to its ease, another reason I decided to offer this recipe to you, dear reader, is its versatility. An oil-based cake without eggs made with water or coffee is naturally vegan, for starters. Otherwise, it can be made with milk or sour milk or buttermilk (omit the vinegar) or alcohol or tea or any liquid (kombu dashi, I wonder?), as the notes on the website suggest. It can be made with natural or Dutch process cocoa, any kind of sugar, gluten-free flour—go ahead and mess with it.

“Did you really think you were going to leave me a chocolate cake and I wasn’t going to eat it for breakfast?!” Nate texted one morning as my tai chi retreat was about to begin. I may not know anything about dessert, but I do know something about breakfast. “Of course not,” I replied.   

RECIPE: Versatile Chocolate Cake

Yields an 8-inch square or 9-inch round cake

• 1 1/2 cups (180g) all-purpose flour (can substitute gluten-free)

• 1 cup (198g) sugar, white or brown

• 1/4 cup (21g) cocoa powder, Dutch-process or natural

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt

• 1/2 teaspoon instant espresso powder, optional

• 1 cup (227g) cold water, milk, coffee, tea, or other liquid

• 1/3 cup (67g) vegetable oil, such as peanut, avocado, grape seed, or olive

• 1 tablespoon (14g) cider or white vinegar

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Fudge Frosting

• 1 1/2 cups (255g) bittersweet chocolate chips or equivalent of chopped dark chocolate (about 60–70%)

• 1/2 cup (113g) half-and-half or 1/3 cup cold black coffee, tea, or water (mixed with some bourbon, if you like)

• 1/2 cup (65g) powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch square or 9-inch round cake pan.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and espresso powder, if using, and whisk to blend. Add the water or other liquid, oil, vinegar (omit if using buttermilk), and vanilla, and whisk until smooth. Pour into the greased pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes until risen and springy to the touch. Test with a toothpick or thermometer to be sure it’s done. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan on a rack.

While the cake cools, prepare the frosting. In a microwave-proof bowl, combine the chocolate with the half and half or other liquid. Microwave for 20 seconds, stir, and repeat until the chocolate has just melted and blended with the liquid. Whisk in the powdered sugar, which in addition to sweetening will reinforce the emulsion and lighten the frosting. Spread over the cooled cake. Cut into squares and serve in the pan.