I baked this cake this year and last year for my grandmothers birthday (which was actually a long time ago. Obviously it has taken me months to write about it) The first time I made it, it was for the group that goes to her house on Sunday. I can usually only go over the summer, so I use the family as an excuse to test out new recipes. She loved it so much, she requested I make another one for her birthday dinner that she has with her 6 sons a few days later. I made it again this year because, instead of a private dinner, she had a bowling party for everyone in the family, including the grandkids. I also made a batch of red velvet cupcakes to make sure we had enough for everyone. These two were easy to bake together because they both require buttermilk, which is great because who ever actually uses all of their buttermilk…
This cake is probably one of my favorite things that I have made. It’s that good. It really is fool proof. For this cake I doubled the recipe and cut off the tops so it was tall and smooth. I probably ended up cutting off too much, so I had a mountain of cake tops left over. I saved those and made cake pops with the leftover pudding/cream cheese mixture instead of icing and they were delicious. If I was just making cake pops, I think the pudding-y filling would be a really nice, lighter change to the typical regular cream cheese or store bought icing many recipes call for.
***NOTE – made sure your cake pans are straight up on the sides. I used the pans at my dads house and they angle out of the sides. SO. ANNOYING. These sorts of pants shouldn’t exist. This is why the sides of my cake aren’t totally smooth. I could have carved it to be flush but I didn’t want to risk really messing it up, and I thought I could put enough ganache so that it wouldn’t be noticeable but it was regardless.
The Best Chocolate Cake
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
The famous Hershey's Chocolate cake recipe. It's incredible moist, light and tender. Everything a chocolate cake should be.
Author: Suzanne Bruno
Recipe type: Cake
Serves: 8-10
Ingredients
- Chocolate Cake
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups sugar
- ¾ cup cocoa powder
- 2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup black strong coffee
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 package of room temperature cream cheese
- 1 package of vanilla pudding, prepared to the directions (aka with milk)
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. (Some recipes say to sift the dry ingredients, others say don't. I've done both and I don't really have a preference. I think I usually do just because, but it works either way.)
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, vegetable oil, buttermilk, coffee and vanilla.
- This can actually be done by hand or with a mixer, pour the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just incorporated. And that's it…
- Pour into two 9-inch cake pans and bake at 350 for 28-30 minutes. I've also done them as cupcakes and they were amazing as well. I honestly can't remember how long I baked them for. Maybe 20 minutes? I'll have to do it again and get a more exact time…
- For the Filling: First mix the heavy whipping cream on high until stiff peaks form. Set aside
- In a separate bowl, mix together the prepared pudding and room temperature cream cheese
- Add the confectioners sugar to the cream cheese and pudding mixture.
- Fold in scoops of the whipped cream until desired consistency is reached.
- Refrigerate for about an hour before using.
Ganache
Most recipes say 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate to 1 cup of heavy cream. You can also boil the cream regularly without a double boiler and then pour the hot cream over the chopped chocolate. Either way works in my opinion. So many times I’ve done it out of order and it always comes out great every time.
The Process
I can’t fine where to use the buttermilk? Cake?
it goes along with the other liquid ingredients. I apologize for the mistake!
Do you think you could explain how you apply to ganache to the cake? Do you just continue to drizzle it over the assembled cake and use an offset spatula to smooth?
There are several methods that work really well. That way is definitely easy and one I use often, but you will probably end up needing to make extra ganache because you lose some in the pouring process. (You don’t even need to use an offset if you have enough to sacrifice). You can also make the ganache and then wait until it cools down and reaches a more spreadable consistency (which is the method we learned in school) and then use a bench scraper/offset like you would a normal frosting or buttercream. (To cool it down faster you can basically temper it the way you would chocolate by placing it on and off an ice bath and mixing it frequently – you can also put it in the fridge but only for 2 minutes or so, or it will set). Does that help?
After using the coffee ingredient
Instant vanilla pudding or cook and serve?
I used instant. Let me know how it turns out!
Thank you! I will let you know!
By the way, I’ve made your chantily cake and it is fantastic! :). Thank you!
Oh thats awesome! Thanks for trusting me with another recipe haha
I have everything ready to put together but the links above for the process keeps giving me an error message. Do you just put the filling in between the cake layers and ganache on top? Did you cut the 2 rounds to make 4 layers? Thanks again.
So sorry about that. It’s an old post (I think transferred from blogger) so those tend to have a few kinks. Great excuse to make this cake again though! I cut the two rounds to make four but I’ve also been lazy and just did two when I was pressed for time. I also make sure it’s very cold (I even pop it in the freezer for a bit) before pouring on the ganache so the filling doesn’t ooze out.
Thank you! All that info was appreciated and very helpful. I made a second cake today after the first cake yesterday fell in the center. I tried to make it all work but the layers were not staying put on the runny filling so putting it in the freezer today was key. I also used cook and serve pudding since that’s what I had on hand. Worked good. While it did not look as pretty as yours, it tasted amazing! Thanks again!
Oh man well I’m glad you gave it a second try and it worked out! I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. So glad it was a success! I’ll make sure to provide step by step images when I redo the recipe
I’m so excited to have found your site! This cake reminds me of a bakery’s chocolate ganache cake that is amazing! I was wondering if I could substitute chocolate pudding for the vanilla to make it a chocolate filling? Would that mix okay with the cream cheese? I don’t see it being a problem with the confectioners sugar or whipping cream. Thanks!
So sorry for my late response. You can definitely sub chocolate pudding! It would be a subtle chocolate flavor, but that sounds really tasty to me since the cake is pretty chocolatey already. If you attempted this let me know! sounds delish