chocolate cake

Today is my grandmas birthday dinner and I wanted to do something special for her so I thought it would be great to make her birthday cake. I wanted to do something everyone would enjoy and I ended up choosing a chocolate cake with a cream cheese frosting and strawberries.


My family loves chocolate and fruit so I thought this would be a great combination. 


makes two 8-9 inch rounds
frosting makes 2 cups


Ingredients (cake)

1 1/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder ( I used Ghirardelli)
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
1 1/4 cups warm water
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour


Cream Cheese Frosting
4 oz cream cheese at room temp
1/2 stick (4 Tablespoons) butter at room temp
1/2 Tablespoon vanilla
1 1/2-2 cups powdered sugar


Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. making sure the baking rack is in the middle of the oven.
2. Prep your cake pans by cutting out a piece of parchment or wax paper to line the bottom of the pan. Grease the pans, place the parchment or wax paper in the bottom of the pan and lightly grease again. Set the pans aside.
3. Using a fine mesh strainer, sift together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl.
4. Add the eggs, yolk, warm water, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. 
5. Mix on low speed (with a handheld mixer or in the bowl of an electric stand mixer) until smooth, about 3 minutes.
6. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. 
7. Bake the cakes for about 32-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean or with moist crumbs. Do not overbake.  
8. Remove the pans from the oven and set the pans on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Gently run a thin knife around the edges of the pans and unmold the cakes, removing the parchment paper liners from the bottom of the cakes. Let them cool completely, top sides ups, on a wire rack.


Cream Cheese Frosting

1. Place the cream cheese in the bowl of your mixer. Beat on medium-high until completely smooth, 3-4 minutes. 

2. Add the butter and continue to cream until fluffy.

3. Add vanilla extract. 
4. Slowly add powdered sugar (1/4 cup at a time) until desired consistency is reached.


I quartered the strawberries and placed them on top of each of the cakes and to add a little something else I drizzled chocolate syrup on top of the strawberries.

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