Ingredients:
4 Eggs, large
3 cups All-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking powder
1 tbsp Baking soda
3 cups Cocoa powder, unsweetened
3 cups Granulated sugar
7 cups Powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp Salt
5 tsp Vanilla
1/2 cup Vegetable oil
1 Butter and flour for coating and dusting the cake pan
1 1/2 cups Butter
1 1/2 cups Buttermilk
8 oz Cream cheese
1/4 cup Milk
1 1/2 cups Water
Directions:
In a large mixing bowl start making the batter, combine 3 cups of flour, 3 cups of sugar, 1.5 cups of cocoa powder, 1 tabs of baking soda, 1.5 tsp of baking powder, and 1.5 teaspoons of salt. Give these a quick whisk to combine, and then, add all of the wet ingredients.
Crack 4 eggs, 1.5 cups of buttermilk, 1.5 cups of hot water, and half a cup of vegetable oil, and then mix this all together by hand or switch to mixer if you want. You don’t need to overmix it, just combine all the ingredients, and make sure that there’s no flour of cocoa powder left in the bottom or on the side.
Next, divide the batter among the three pans, and bake them in the 350 degree oven for 30-35mins. Make sure that you move your oven rack in the center, so that you’re baking cake in the very center of the oven. This will ensure the most even baking, if you can only fit two of your cakes at a time, that’s fine and bake the third one right after.
Once they’re done, remove them from the oven and place them on a wire rack to cool. Let them cool for about 10 minutes, before turning them over and removing them from the pan.
While you’re waiting for the cakes to cool, you can go ahead and put together your frosting. And the best part is that you can use all kinds of frosting for this cake including whipped chocolate ganache, which is pretty good.
Start by putting 8 ounces of cream cheese in a bowl, and add in 1.5 cups of softened butter, and use a hand-mixer to whip these together. And once it’s light and fluffy, add in 1.5 cups of cocoa powder.
Note: The kind of cocoa powder you use for this and the cake really matters, so make sure to use the highest-quality cocoa powder you can find. It really makes a difference.
Mix them together, and then also add in a couple tablespoons of milk, and if you see that you need more, add it. Because, frosting is really a fickle thing. So, the amount of milk you add, can really vary. So, just eyeball it, and go ahead.
Add about 8 cups of powdered sugar, and keep whisking until you get a nice thicken batter. And use a hand scraper to make sure that all powdered sugar gets mixed.
And once our cakes are cool, we’ll put them all together with the frosting in-between and in the side making them look like one cake.
