Devil's Food Cake with Chocolate Buttercream: Recipe

I don't usually care for chocolate cake - I'm not a big fan of chocolate, actually. But this cake is so moist and delicious that it's hard to resist. Couple the cake with rich, creamy, sweet chocolate buttercream and you have a culinary masterpiece!

This is easy to do - really. I actually sliced the cake halves into halves, again, to give me 4 layers. So I've shown you the "in-progress" version and the completed version. Perhaps I'll snap a photo of the "sliced" version once that happens!

This recipe comes from a baking class I took in NYC some years ago. I know it's from Nick Malgieri's set of recipes and it is really delicious. He uses unsweetened chocolate - I used bittersweet with 60% cacao. He also used 1 1/2 cups of dark brown sugar whereas I used 1 cup dark brown and 1/2 cup light brown sugar. The frosting is my own recipe.

Devil's Food Cake
3 oz. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/3 c. water
2 large eggs
8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup sour cream

Butter and line bottoms 2 8" round cake pans with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350.

Place chocolate and water over a double boiler set at medium-high heat. Stir until chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and cool slightly. Add the eggs and whisk well.

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar for about 5 minutes. Add in the chocolate and egg mixture and beat until smooth. Stir together flour, salt, baking powder and soda. Beat in 1/2 the mixture into the sugar and mix well. Beat in the sour cream and mix well. Add in the remaining 1/2 of the flour mixture. Pour into the prepared pans and bake about 40 minutes - until the tester comes out clean. Cool on racks for about 5 minutes in the pans and then turn out on the racks, remove parchment and cool completely.


Chocolate Buttercream
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp. vanilla extract
6 Tbsp. milk
8 cups (2 lbs) confectioners sugar
6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until light and smooth. Add in the vanilla and beat again. Add 1/4 of the sugar and mix well, add in some milk and repeat with the sugar and milk. Before adding the last of the milk and sugar, add in the chocolate and mix well. Finally add in a bit of milk and end the process with the sugar. Mix well until smooth and creamy.