Week 3: Chocolate Cola Cake

Source: May Falum
Overall impression: Very Moist & Crowd Pleaser
It was ... a great choice for my mother-in-law who just retired from many years with a Pepsi distributing company.  However, it wasn't very chocolaty so I may add chocolate chips next time.


Chocolate Pepsi Cola Cake
Time = 1 hour
Servings = 12

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar, not packed*
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1/4 cup unsweetened coca powder
1 cup Pepsi cola
1/2 c buttermilk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl mix together flour, sugars, salt, baking soda and cinnamon.

In a sauce pan, melt butter over medium heat and whisk in coca powder, Pepsi and buttermilk.  Pour into the flour mixture.  Stir until completely combined.

Add eggs and vanilla - stir in.

Grease and flour two round cake tins (see picture below).  Pour half the batter into each tin and place in oven.  Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Remove to a baking rack to cool for 15 minutes before removing from the tins.  Frost (I didn't make the glaze in the original recipe, I just used basic vanilla frosting.)

*The original recipe called for 2 cups of white, granulated sugar but I only had 1 cup left.  So I decided to do one cup white and one cup brown sugar.  It turned out very yummy!

Here is the butter and the cola melting together.  I used a whisk to keep it all from burning to the bottom of the pan and to mix in the coca powder.

To keep the cake from sticking to the tins: 1) use a paper towel to apply a coating of shortening to the bottom and edges of the tin; 2)  put a couple tablespoons of flour in each tin; and 3) tip the tin to move the flour around all surface.  Do this last step over the sink because you'll probably spills some (I always do.)

There are some really talented cake decorators our there ... I am not one of them.  I can't even make decent frosting.  This is one place where I don't go from scratch, I go to the store.  Basic vanilla frosting and pre-made little letters.