What makes chocolate cake the epitome of delightful desserts? A good baker, one might argue, but truly, it’s also the ingredients. You give the world’s greatest baker cheap ingredients, and they’ll bake cheap chocolate cake. You give an aspiring baker the best ingredients and the odds of them baking good chocolate cake increase tremendously.
Sure, it may take some work and practice before you become a complete bakery boss, and yes, getting to master chocolate cake techniques may breed some bad results, but it’s nice to get to that finishing point where you’ve done it: you’ve baked your first, and eventually the ultimate chocolate cake.
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And because you never know when or whom will call on you to bake the world’s perfect dessert, why not start experimenting with becoming a better baker now?
It’s all in the ingredients
The primary ingredients in a chocolate cake are:
- Flour, chocolate, eggs and butter cream.
- The rest include sugar, baking soda, salt, vanilla extract, vegetable oil and other ingredients as listed by each recipe.
There are many takes on chocolate cake and variations, and many recipes don’t have chocolate as an ingredient, but instead, they ask for (Dutch) cocoa powder. Some may have both.
However, as any chocolate lover will tell you, the real type of chocolate cake comes with a lot of chocolate.
And speaking of, you need good quality chocolate if you want best results. This doesn’t mean you need the most expensive chocolate, but you do get better results with chocolate that contains some amount of cocoa butter, which is generally considered the real chocolate.
Aldi catalogue specials include chocolate options that are cheaper and still good. Many aspiring bakers make lovely cakes with ingredients they buy here before upgrading to more expensive bakery items.
Remember never to use expensive chocolate when trying a new recipe for the first time, but rather test the recipe a couple of times. It’s also important that you use the exact type of chocolate that a recipe asks. Don’t substitute bittersweet with sweet or vice versa and always make sure chocolate is good quality when it’s required in bigger amounts.
Choosing good quality cocoa is also important. In some cases, cocoa makes cake more flavorful and moist. Some bakers even prefer to bake with cocoa powder instead of chocolate.
If using Dutch cocoa and the raising agent in the recipe is baking soda, then it’s very important that you add an acidic ingredient such as sour cream because the cocoa is alkaline and without the required ingredient the entire cake will taste alkaline and probably not bake very well either.
Baking powder is used more commonly in chocolate cakes, in which case no acidifier is required.
A general rule of thumb is that chocolate cakes made with cocoa powder are intensely flavored, usually because these cakes are made with oil instead of butter or milk that naturally dilute flavor. They also tend to be moister because oil is liquid at room temperature.
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On the other hand, chocolate cakes made with chocolate are less flavorful, not that feather-light, but definitely chocolate-rich and fluffy if you mix it right.