Let's talk about cake!

There are thousands of cake recipes out there, some crazy, some fun, some easy others hard, some yummy and others not worth the calories. In a really big sea of so many cakes it's always nice to have a few go to base cake recipes that you know will always be and you can throw together in a hurry. I use to have the best chocolate cake recipe. It was easy, so good, you could change it up and it always came out right. Well the sad part is I lost it, so I have been on the hunt for a new one. I found this almost a month ago and have already made it twice, both as a cupcake and as a cake. So far it has passed a few of my test for a go to base cake, it's easy to make, it comes out very moist (I hate dry cakes), it tastes good and every one loves it. The next step is to see how adaptable it is.



What you will need:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

From the pantry
1 and a 1/2 cups sugar
1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 of a cup of unsweetened cocoa powder. The better quality cocoa powder the better the cake will be.
1 and a 1/2 teaspoons each of baking powder and baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
2 and 1/4 teaspoons of vanilla (the 1/4 of teaspoon is extra. I always add a little extra vanilla so you could just use the 2 teaspoons if you want to)
1/2 cup of canola oil (you could also use vegetable oil)

From the fridge
2 eggs
1 cup of milk

Others
1 cup of boiling water.
Cupcake pan, cupcake liners or cake pan

I made about 16 cupcake with this recipe. The original said it makes 24, but I like to make big cupcakes.

Instructions
Put all of the dry ingredients (baking powder and soda, cocoa, flour and salt) in the bowl of a stand mixer (if you don't have one you could use a hand mixer, or just hand mix it) and stir them together.
Then add all the wet ingredients except the boiling water (eggs, milk, oil and vanilla) and mix on medium for about two minutes.
The next step is to add the boiling water.  Be very careful and just add a little at a time if you are going to use the mixer, I just hand mixed it in.
The batter will be a thin liquid. I poured it into a measuring glass to pour it into the cupcake liners for no mess.
Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes or until a knife pulls out clean.
Let cool and enjoy.

The photo shows this as a double layer cake with peanut butter frosting (the frosting post to follow) and chocolate candies chopped up on top

The original recipe came from My Baking Empire.  I change a few little things and only used the recipe for the cupcakes.

Enjoy!