Difficutly: very easy
Time: 5 Min
Portion: 1 serving
Ingredients:
Chocolate Cake
INGREDIENTS
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter (I made this at school. If it was at home, I would have used salted butter and cut the salt down to 1/4 tsp or so.)
2 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup sour cream
1 cup really hot water. Or just hot water.
Chocolate Buttercream
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled (I used chips.)
3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) salted butter
6 tablespoons water
3/4 cup sugar
3 large egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
Directions:
Chocolate Cake
Preheat oven to 350 °F. Line two muffin pans with liners. (Which I didn\’t do. >.> That\’s what Pam for Baking is for!)
Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar until well mixed, trying to get some sort of volume (it will lighten a bit in colour… and it took me a while to get it to do that. I think part of it had to do with such a small batch in an industrial-size mixer). Add eggs one at a time. Beat in the vanilla and oil. Add 1/2 the sour cream and then 1/2 the dry ingredients to the butter mixture until well blended.
Add the remaining sour cream and dry ingredients to the batter. Stir in water.
Fill cups about 2/3 full with batter. Bake for about 15 – 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Allow to cool completely before frosting.
Chocolate Buttercream
Chop the butter into about 1/2-inch cubes. You want to let it soften, but not too much. I just chopped it, put it in the fridge, then took it out when I was whipping the egg whites with the sugar syrup.
In a small saucepan, bring the water and sugar to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil syrup, without stirring, until a candy thermometer registers 245 °F.
While syrup is boiling, beat the whites until foamy, then beat in the cream of tartar in your mixer using the whisk attachment. Beat the whites until they just hold stiff peaks and beat in hot syrup in a stream (try to avoid pouring onto beaters and side of bowl). (I tried to get it in time, but I wound up stiffening my egg whites before the sugar syrup was hot enough. I just turned it off, then turned it back on when the sugar syrup was about 240°F.) Beat mixture at medium speed until completely cool, about 10 minutes. (At this point I took the butter out. It was still a little firm. It worked fine.)