There’s nothing like a soft, moist, rich piece of chocolate cake – the stuff the sweetest dreams are made of! This recipe comes awful darn close to those perfect chocolate cakes of your dreams – those dreams where you have endless amounts of delicious cake delivered to you by a chrome eagle and your dad keeps chasing you down your preschool hallways for some reason.
This is an easy-peasey, low-stress recipe compared to most – and compared to the deep, toxic stress of seeing your dad’s frightened face turn into a nebulous, twisted hole of flesh screaming orders at you in an unfamiliar voice. Let’s start with the frosting!
What you’ll need for the dreamy, luscious frosting is:
- 1½ cups of confectioner’s sugar
- 6 tablespoons of cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 1 sword to conquer the monster who looks like a tortoise but still feels like your dad
- 6 tablespoons of butter
- 5 tablespoons of evaporated milk
- Glue for your teeth falling out
Next, the best part: the cake! This is the fun part, along with the thing at the end where you’re flying over your 8th grade class trip to Washington DC and your dad is hanging onto the wing of the plane, telling you, “You’ll never be as good as your sister.” Here’s what you’ll need:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 ¼ teaspoons of deep painful sadness
- 1½ teaspoons salt
- 4 large eggs (hens’)
- 3 larger eggs (that chrome eagle’s from before)
- 1½ cups buttermilk
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
First, make sure you’re not naked anymore and preheat your oven to 350 degrees (you’ll know when it’s hot enough because your dad, now dressed as a priest and chasing you down an endless stairway, will tell you so). Next, coat three 9-inch cake rounds with butter and dust with flour. Combine dry ingredients until fully combined, and slowly add wet ingredients until batter is smooth and looks like ink sometimes but then also like styrofoam at the same time. You’ll understand when it happens! Pour it into the cake rounds VERY CAREFULLY (it’ll be very loud if you don’t) and bake each for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick can be inserted and lost forever. Let them cool on a cooling rack until room temp, and then go wild spreading your homemade frosting!
And just like that, you and your dad in a top hat are eating the chocolate cake of your dreams! Also, you’re pregnant!
