Hi everybody,

  I have a choclate cake recipe that I want to try, but the recipe does not tell you to dissolve cocoa in hot water.  I love Rose’s trick of dissolving the cocoa because I love an intense chocolate flavor.  But, the only liquides in the recipe are 1/4 C coffee, buttermilk, and sour cream.  The recipe calls for 2 Cups Cocoa so I know the 1/4 C coffee would never dissolve that much cocoa…  Any suggestions??  By the way, the cake I am wanting to try is Ina Garten’s Chocolate Buttercream Cake on the foodtv website..

Use Rose’s method for the Chocolate Domingo cake.

The only other way I can think of that you might be able to use water and cocoa is to use powdered butter milk (then using the same amount of water to dissolve the cocoa), but I don’t think it would be as good as real buttermilk.  I imagine this will be more mellow anyway like the Domingo cake because of the sour cream.  If you want an intense chocolate cake, it might have to be another recipe.

Personally, I think if you like a really intense chocolate cake, you want melted chocolate as your foundation, not cocoa powder.  My favorite chocolate cake is from Mrs. Fields, it uses 1 cup cocoa powder and 6 ounces melted chocolate.  JPG of the recipe attached.

MrsM

OK, I guess that is not going to work, as when you enlarge it, it becomes a blur and unreadable.  I will type it out and repost.

MrsM

OK, here you go, my favorite chocolate cake.

DEVIL’S FOOD CAKE     Mrs. Fields  “I Love Chocolate”

1 3/4 cups boiling water (14 ounces)
6 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped, I use Callebaut
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (3 1/4 ounces)
2 cups (7 ounces) bleached AP flour or sifted cake flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 ounces unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups dark brown sugar, packed (12 1/4 ounces)
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°.  Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans, line with parchment rounds, grease and flour the parchment as well. 

In a medium bowl, pour the boiling water over the chopped chocolate and cocoa powder and stir until the chocolate is melted and smooth.  Cool to room temp.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time, beat well after each addition.  Beat in the vanilla.  Add the flour and half of the chocolate.  Beat on low to combine, then beat on high for 1 1/2 minutes.  Add the remaining chocolate and beat on low to combine.

Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 30-40 minutes (mine needs 37 minutes) until the toothpick comes out clean at the center.  Set on a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes.  Turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Hi CakeMunchkin - I have always been under the impression that good quality cocoa powder has the richest chocolatey flavor.  I don’t think you need to worry about dissolving the cocoa powder in Ina’s recipe - I’m sure the cake will turn out just fine (do be sure to sift out any lumps though).  Let us know how the cake turns out .

Also, if you employ Rose’s two-step mixing method, you shouldn’t have any problem with mixing the cocoa into the batter; just add the cocoa in with the dry ingredients, blend them together in the mixing bowl, then proceed with the rest of the ingredients as Rose specifies.  I make ALL of my butter cakes this way…it has yet to disappoint!

Cooks’ Illustrated web site tried the powdered buttermilk and said it worked quite well in baked goods. So it might be worth a try to bloom the cocoa in water and add powdered buttermilk to the dry ingredients.

You could try replacing some of the buttermilk in the recipe with water—and not adding any powdered buttermilk. The thing is, you might have to adjust the leavening as well—if your recipe has baking soda in it, then most likely the buttermilk is providing some of the acid to react with the baking soda.

Rule of thumb—one cup of buttermilk will neutralize about 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. So you have a couple of options:
1) for every cup of buttermilk you substitute with water, remove 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and add 2 teaspoons of baking powder (you may need to use a little more, up to 2 1/4 teaspoons).
2) for every cup of buttermilk you remove, add 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar which should provide enough acid to react properly with 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.

Hey Everybody!

  I just wanted to tell you all thank you so much for all of your help and suggestions!  I had really hoped to have been posting a reply today to let ya’ll know how my cake turned out and what I decided to do…BUT…during the time I thought I would have available to bake a cake, some stuff came up and I did not get the chance.  Now I am in the middle of moving, so I am not sure when my next chance to bake will be.  Hopefully, it will be very soon!  I love to bake, and I tend to bake even more when I am stressed out, so I can almost see myself digging around in boxes looking for beaters and measuring cups one night very soon, hahaha!  Anyway, just wanted to say thanks!