I had some farmers cheese with a soon approaching expiration date, so I made some sweet cheese crescent rolls. The rolls are filled with the cheese. It’s my mother’s recipe with which i have fiddled around with for a long time. She just kind of threw it together with no measurements. It’s just one of those that you have to have an instint about. It made 24 and they freeze well.
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My plan for a friend’s mother’s 80th birthday party has slightly changed. Instead of making a chocolate bundt for her personal “blow out the candles” cake, I’m going to make a traditional layered chocolate birthday cake. I suggested this and it was approved 
So all that to ask: what is your favorite chocolate birthday cake, please? Many years ago I made this and remember not really loving it, so I need some fresh inspo.
Looking for standard American-style chocolate cake here, not a torte or anything fancy 
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This is my go-to chocolate layer cake. Easy and delicious. https://www.seriouseats.com/bravetarts-devils-food-cake
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This is a recipe I’ve cobbled together over time, and is my go-to. It’s very tender and moist, and at its best a couple of days after baking. Photo for reference, with cakes sliced in half to make four layers. If you want to slice the cakes horizontally, it’s easiest at least 12 hours after baking and after chilling the layers.
Chocolate Layer Cake
100 grams semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup/65g Dutch process cocoa powder
1 cup hot coffee or 1 cup very hot water and 2 teaspoons instant espresso
2 cups/240g AP flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 tsp fine salt or heaped 3/4 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt.
3/4 cup/150g granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed/150g brown sugar
3 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup neutral oil (I use sunflower)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350F and prepare 2 8-inch round cake pans by greasing and lining bottoms with parchment. Put chopped chocolate, cocoa, and instant espresso (if using) in a large heatproof mixing bowl and pour the hot coffee or water over. Let stand 5 minutes, then whisk until smooth and set aside to cool slightly. Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl. Whisk sugars into chocolate mixture, followed by eggs until thoroughly combined. Whisk in buttermilk, oil, and vanilla, then stir in dry ingredients. Pour into pans and bake until tester comes out clean, 20-25 minutes in my oven, but others may need longer. Cool about 10 minutes, then turn out onto a lightly oiled rack to cool completely.
Best served at least a day after baking. Cake will stay moist for several days kept at room temperature if well wrapped or in an airtight container, or for up to a week in the refrigerator.
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Thanks, another contender Curious that I’m not seeing any reviews… that’s weird.
The Serious Eats web site has over 130 reviews. I’ve made it several times and it is always a hit. I am always also surprised at how easy it is to make. The biggest challenge is chilling the ganache for several hours before whipping it up into a frosting.
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I made a polenta-almond cake yesterday for the third or fourth time and it turned out terribly! I think I made too many changes, even though it has been resilient with changes in the past.
The biggest problem is that I substituted grits for polenta. I had previously successfully substituted cornmeal, but I guess grits are even tougher. I didn’t feel like softening two sticks of butter so I substituted two tablespoons of olive oil for the remainder. I think maybe I added a bit too much juice with my two navel oranges substituted for three lemons. And I had trouble getting it to bake all the way through in the center – as maybe you can see, it was a bit gooey. The worst thing though was that the corneal never really softened up. And I think subbing orange juice for lemon pushed into too-sweet territory. A bit embarrassing as I brought this to a dinner party and it looked good…
Pride (and substitutions) before the fall, and all.
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My browser was helpfully hiding them:) Thanks!
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I went ahead and bought the ingredients for a trial run of the Dorie recipe, because I thought I didn’t have any of the style of cocoa that Stella uses. But then I weighed what I found in the back of the cabinet, and I have exactly, to the gram, the amount needed for a half-recipe of Stella. AND it’s snowing all day which means my butt is happy to stay in the kitchen and bake.
SO. All that to say - one half devil’s food cake coming up.
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I can’t wait to hear how it turns out!
I made more dumb mistakes in following the directions for this cake than I have possibly at any other moment in all the years I’ve been baking. So this should be interesting.
I halved the recipe and put the batter into two 6” pans. Baking up now.
Did you make the Swiss meringue buttercream?
Oh wait, I see you made ganache.
Yeah I do the ganache . It is simple but it just takes time to chill.
I just sliced the dome off and tasted it. Delicious.
I’m not sure I have the chocolate in the house for ganache, and it’s snowing really hard to I won’t be driving to the store today at any point. I’ll double check at halftime.
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Hm. She calls for milk chocolate for the ganache, but I’ve only got bittersweet. It won’t be “too much” for me … and the alternative of making Swiss meringue feels overwhelming. I wonder if I should just do the bittersweet….?
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I’d go for it with the bittersweet but I’m no baking expert.
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This is a test cake so I think I’ll take one for the team here if mom doesn’t like it she can always scrape it off.
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I love Bittersweet.
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Finally, finally, actual baguette not just long bread:
The Big J gave me All About Baguette by Jean Marie Lanio and Jeremy Ballester. It’s a small but pricey tome, but boy did it give results. This is the first recipe in the book: Traditional French baguette made using liquid levain. It calls for T65 flour, which we don’t have here so I subbed 60% Caputo pizza flour and 40% hard flour and I had to adjust the water that was needed. Apart from Proustian one I had decades ago in Montreal, I haven’t tasted better. No more pining for something not available outside of an hour’s drive. The thin, crackly crust and soft, open crumb make me unbelievably happy! I need to work on shaping and I’ll weigh the dough out for consistency next time, but By Jove, I think I’ve got it!
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