Perfect, Easy Chocolate Cake
It only took me six tries to get this cake perfect. But it took me another ten rounds before I convinced myself I’d done it.
The recipe
Yield: one 9 x 13-inch cake, about 16 servings
Time: 1 hour, plus cooling time
Ingredients
Cake:
2 c (424 g) sugar
1 ¾ c (220 g) flour
1 ½ tsp (7 g) baking powder
1 ½ tsp (9 g) baking soda
1 tsp (9 g) salt
¾ c (80 g) cocoa powder
2 eggs
½ c (120 g) vegetable oil
2 tsp (12 g) vanilla extract
1 ¾ c (420 g) boiling water
Frosting:
2 c (460 g) heavy cream
½ c (106 g) sugar
4 Tbsp (26 g) cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
Instructions
Cake:
1. Preheat your oven to 350°F and grease a 9 x 13 pan.
2. Add the sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to a large bowl. Sift the cocoa powder into the same bowl.
3. Whisk the dry ingredients until combined.
4. Add the eggs, oil, and vanilla extract and whisk until combined.
5. Add the boiling water and whisk until well combined and the batter is smooth, about a minute.
6. Pour the cake batter into the pan and bake 35–38 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out with a few cooked crumbs clinging to it.
7. Let the cake cool on the counter until it reaches room temperature.
Frosting:
1. Once the cake is cool, put all of the frosting ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Whisk vigorously until the mixture forms soft peaks. (When you lift the whisk from the bowl, the frosting will form a point and the top will flop over on itself.)
3. Spread it evenly on the cake and enjoy immediately. Store the cake, covered, in the fridge, but let slices warm to room temperature for the best texture.
Notes and tips
The single best thing you can do to level up your chocolate cake game is to buy a good-quality cocoa powder. I’m not talking Nestle brand instead of the store brand. I mean go online and get your hands on a few boxes of Droste or Guittard cocoa or something similar. It will utterly transform the way your chocolate baked goods taste.
Sifting is a pain, yes, but cocoa powder tends to clump, so I recommend it.
You could also make this cake and frosting in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment. It’s really not necessary for the cake part, but it will save your arm when making the frosting.
For a more detailed guide on testing cake doneness, check out my guide to better cakes.







The story
I thought that a chocolate cake recipe similar in style to the ones I grew up on, which used oil as the main fat and added a cup of boiling water to the batter just before it went in the oven, was the way to go. Those cakes had always turned out well for me and got compliments at every church potluck.
That’s the direction I went with this recipe, and my taste testers agreed that the sixth version of this cake was fantastic. A coworker of my husband’s who is on a mission to thoroughly evaluate every bakery in NYC called this cake “globally optimal,” which BC assured me was high praise. And the recipe was the simplest one I’ve ever written—all you need is a bowl and a whisk to make it. It was pretty clear that I was done.
But then I went to Vienna and had a chocolate cake that blew my mind. It was light, not at all fudgy, and so buttery. I loved the depth of flavor that came from all the dairy in it. And I realized that my perfect chocolate cake was as light as this one. If I could create the same delicate, super airy texture as my Perfect, Easy Vanilla Cake recipe, but in a chocolate cake, I’d have won.
But BC didn’t think anything needed improving. He’d eaten the Viennese cake, too, and he still loved the deep, dark flavor of the one I’d sent to his office. I told him to wait until he tasted the next cake. He couldn’t see the vision, but he’d understand when I fed it to him. I got to work. I substituted melted butter and buttermilk for the oil and water. I tried adding more baking soda and baking powder to give the cake a higher rise. I tried adding chocolate chips to the batter for extra flavor. But the cakes sagged in the middle, or the edges were dry, or they were a little dense, or the chocolate chips sank to the bottom and stuck badly to the pan. I baked ten more versions, and I was out of ideas.
Well, all ideas but one. I’d been baking oil-based cakes, but maybe the Viennese cake had been a butter cake, one which creamed butter and sugar together as the base of the batter. I prefer oil cakes because butter cakes are usually dry. It was theoretically possible to make a great one—the café in Vienna had done it—but I wasn’t going to master a new technique quickly, and my husband’s coworkers, who had eaten that magical sixth cake, were dying to have the recipe.
I admitted, reluctantly, that my husband had been right. That sixth cake was the best I was going to do for now. But maybe I was right, too. There might be two perfect chocolate cakes out there instead of one—different styles but equally delicious. One is airy and light, with a rich, buttery flavor, studded with chocolate chips throughout. I hope to develop that recipe for you one day. But maybe the one I’d already made was perfect in its own way. And I could certainly be proud of its strengths—a texture so moist it’s just shy of fudgy, a recipe so easy a beginning baker can’t get it wrong, and a chocolate flavor so pure and intense I’ve yet to taste its equal.
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