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Home Recipes Desserts One Bowl Chocolate Cake Recipe and My Cake Decorating Attempts
4 Comments
3 minutes
March 10, 2023
Andi GleesonJump to Recipe
DessertsKid Food
This One Bowl Chocolate Cake Recipe is very easy, and the cake is moist and delicious!
I wouldn’t say I’m a good cake decorator. Here are examples of my personal best cakes, made for The Tall One’s first birthday. I don’t think anyone thought they came from a professional bakery.
For our anniversary last week, I was ready to show off my amateur cake decorating skills again. I have been looking forward to using a number stencil idea I found on Pinterest. Her photo looks way better than mine, but while I think sprinkles look fun, I don’t actually like eating them. I used unsweetened flaked coconut on chocolate cake instead. To make the number design, I drew the numbers on waxed paper and cut them out. (For more perfect numbers, you could print them from your computer, then trace them onto the waxed paper.) I placed the numbers on top of my frosted cake, sprinkled with coconut, then carefully peeled off the paper. Here is the cute result!
I had two assistants ready and willing to help when it was time to bake this cake. One big weakness of mine as a mom is that I don’t do well with help in the kitchen. Messes stress me out, and I like doing things the right way my way. Since this was going to be a group project, I wanted to get it done as quickly and easily as possible. I found a one bowl chocolate cake recipe in my trusty Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook(affiliate link) that seemed like a perfect option. I modified it a tad to reduce the fat and sugar, and I substituted butter for the shortening. I also couldn’t help but mix the butter just a little before throwing everything else in because I couldn’t imagine it getting incorporated evenly otherwise. It felt very wrong to put all the ingredients in together, but I must say the end result was terrific. Instead of light and fluffy, this chocolate cake was dense, moist, and satisfying. I used a basic chocolate buttercream frosting, but I’m not going to recommend it because it wasn’t my favorite. Do you have a favorite chocolate frosting? I would love to find one that tastes like chocolate mousse.
One Bowl Chocolate Cake
Create a rich, moist devil’s food cake with this easy one-bowl recipe.
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 10 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- 1/2 cup butter softened
- 2–1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1–1/2 cups sugar
- 2/3 cup baking cocoa
- 1–1/4 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup applesauce or substitute vegetable oil
- 1–1/2 cups water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 large eggs
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two round cake pans, a 13×9″ dish, or a bundt pan.
Mix butter on medium-low speed until smooth, then add remaining ingredients. Mix on lowest speed until combined, and then on medium-high speed for three minutes.
Pour batter into pans. Bake round cakes for 25-30 minutes, rectangular cake for 35-40 minutes, or bundt cake for approximately 45 minutes. Cake is done when toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
Cool cake in pan for 10- 15 minutes, then cool completely on wire rack before decorating.
- Author: Andi
- Prep Time: 5
- Cook Time: 40
- Category: Dessert
More cakes you’ll enjoy:
Andi Gleeson
4 comments
Mary Davis
9 years ago
sometimes when I want a chocolate mousse type of frosting, I don’t frost the cake, but put dollops of chocolate mousse on each piece. chocolate mousse is made (my way) by mixing equal amounts of chocolate pudding (homemade or cups) with Cool Whip. hope you enjoy.
thanks for this site – it inspires me often!
Andi
9 years ago
This is a great idea, Mary! I love light and fluffy frostings instead of heavy buttercream. I used a pudding and Cool Whip frosting on this Hello Kitty cake, but it had cream cheese too. So good! Thank you, and have a good weekend :)
The Weary Chef
11 years ago
We typically get tacky grocery store cakes that don’t taste that good for big parties, but I make a cake for home celebrations. The store-bought cakes can be pretty good if we stick to real whipped cream frosting, chocolate cake, and fresh strawberry filling. I don’t like buttercream icing much (can you tell?), so I usually just skip cake if that’s what is offered.
The other alternative is getting a cake from a very nice (and very expensive) local bakery that makes gorgeous, delicious cakes way better than anything I could make at home!
Liz
11 years ago
when my oldest was 6ish, she begged for a grocery store bakery princess cake. Broke my heart and it tasted like cardboard, but she got the little plastic princesses that sat on top and the huge frosting puffs. She’s since said that the bakery cakes look better, but homemade tastes better. Yay. Sounds like you and I have similar decorating abilities. Your animal cakes are cute :-) Like the one-of-a-kind look more than I do the cookie-cutter factory look. That said, have one more post to share and I hope you will enjoy this article. Then will stop, I promise ;-) Just very much enjoying our chats.
Happy to have another chocolate cake recipe and will be on the lookout for nummy frosting recipes.
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