One Chocolate Cake To Rule Them All

A simple step leads to absurd results.

Thanksgiving was a rough one this year.  In the span of one week, I made three pecan pies, two turkeys, and an infinite number of terrible (but delicious) decisions.  By the time Black Friday rolled around, I had recommitted myself to healthy eating and losing ten pounds.  Naturally, I spent the rest of the day baking a chocolate cake.

The blame lands squarely with Southern baker Cheryl Day, who rudely infected my brain with her undeniable Chocolate Church Cake during a recent episode of Milk Street.  Watching her assemble this shrine to chocolate was a powerful experience — too powerful for my weak soul.  I instantly purchased her book, Cheryl Day’s Treasury of Southern Baking, with the goal of someday making this three-tiered monolith.  After all, both she and host Christopher Kimball had declared it the best chocolate cake they’d ever made or eaten — how could I not sample it for myself?

Easier said than done.  The Chocolate Church Cake is by no means a simple snacking cake.  The process involves sponges, soaks, and a decadent frosting.  Chocolate must be melted three different times, and many hot things need to be cool and many cold things need to be warm.  The Chocolate Church Cake requires an investment of time, which is why up until Black Friday, I hadn’t attempted it.  And I wasn’t going to attempt it that day either (see above paragraph concerning healthy eating goals)… but then my friend Lauren and I went to lunch and got to talking about food and cooking and, well, one thing led to another, and soon we realized it was actually our galactic destiny to make Chocolate Church Cake that day.

And so make it we did.  As expected, this cake was an all-day affair.  From the time we headed off to the grocery store to the time we took our first bite, about eight hours went by.  I’m not saying this is an eight-hour cake.  I’m saying it took us that long.  We probably could have shaved off a few hours had we been swifter at the store and not paused for dinner and TV watching.  But it was a lazy day, and lazy days call for lazy cakes.  That’s an expression, right?  No?

The cake was actually easy to make.  Not simple, but easy. There were no fussy aspects like whipping egg whites into stiff peaks or heating sugar to a certain temperature.  Just many steps to follow.  By and large, however, it wasn’t that far off from making any other cake.  The batter had all the greatest hits — mix wet ingredients, mix dry ingredients, and that iconic move: mix wet ingredients INTO dry ingredients.

There was, of course, lots of chocolate.  The batter required us to melt over half a pound of unsweetened chocolate in hot coffee — a combo that Ina Garten frequently states “makes the chocolate taste more like chocolate.” I can assure you that this cake recipe, passed down from Day’s grandmother, seems determined to prove that theory true.  Not even Ina’s famed Beatty’s Chocolate Cake has this much coffee (or chocolate).  I AM NOT COMPLAINING.  Honestly, as the chocolate melted into the coffee, the smell was so intoxicating that I was tempted to scrap the whole recipe and pour the mocha mixture down my gullet instead.  It’s amazing the batter even made it into the oven.

We wound up melting chocolate two more times — once for a buttercream frosting and once again for a chocolate milk soak.  Busting out the double boiler twice in a row felt slightly exhausting, but, also, it was literally the easiest thing in the world.  I think we were just antsy to eat the cake.

After brushing the milk soak onto two cake rounds, spackling the whole thing with the buttercream, and cleaning umpteen dishes (Lauren mainly did that while I took on decorating duty), we were finally, finally ready to dig into our gorgeous monstrosity.  This towering mass contained well over one pound of chocolate, three cups of sugar (granulated and powdered), three sticks of butter, and one cup of oil.  AND WE DIDN’T CARE.

Well, I mean, we cared, but we chose to focus on the cake’s more glorious features:  its height (so tall it couldn’t fit under a cake dome); its weight (see above stats); and its general presence (like a Thwomp from Super Mario Bros.).  I was particularly impressed with the way the frosting clung to the sponges, creating sharp corners at the top.  I’m not sure I’ve ever been able to achieve such defined angles.  For that alone I was incredibly thrilled.

But who cares about appearances?  We’re here to talk about flavors.  Was all this effort, were all these calories worth it?  I mean… of course it was.  You knew that.  You knew exactly where this was headed.  This cake was… undoubtedly… the best chocolate cake I’d ever made.  But don’t take my word for it:  my mother, who often proudly notes that she is not a cake person, announced that it was in fact the best chocolate cake she’d ever eaten.  I’m tempted to agree with her, but I need to leaf through my mental catalogue of past chocolate cakes before I make any definitive statements.

It’s honestly difficult to convey just how complete the chocolate flavor tasted in this cake.  Hours after eating that first, amazing slice, I texted my friends:  “Other chocolate cakes taste like delicious cakes made of chocolate.  This one tasted like chocolate turned into a cake.”  Like the best chocolate cakes, Cheryl Day’s Church Cake hit all those bitter, sweet, and round notes — but it was the soak that connected this cake to nostalgic flavors like a melty Hershey’s bar or a sip of hot cocoa.

All hail the chocolate milk soak

The soak, importantly, did double duty — not just imparting choco-goodness but also keeping bites from becoming too claggy in the mouth.  Texture, of course, plays as important a role as flavor.  Well — maybe not equal.  I’ll say 70/30 flavor to texture.  Either way, it should be no surprise that the Chocolate Church Cake texture was fantastic.  Cake flour, it turns out, makes for great cakes!  The sponges felt light as air, despite the 145 lbs. of butter and sugar housed within.  Any denser, and we might not have survived even just one slender, towering slice. The end result – a cake that Lauren described as heavy but shockingly light too.  Not too rich, not too sugary, despite all ingredients suggesting the opposite. Any three-tier cake that doesn’t force an immediate horizontal position on the couch is always impressive.

Our Chocolate Church Cake was a massive undertaking, but it doesn’t have to be that way.  With a more efficient approach, most people could probably finish this cake within a reasonable timeframe.  If this is a project you feel like taking on, here are some takeaways:

• Cake flour.  You do need cake flour.  I’m reluctant to add more flours to my pantry these days, but given how lovely the texture of this cake was, I would hate for you to use all-purpose flour and have a sub-optimal experience. One thing to know:  Bob’s Red Mill Unbleached White Fine Pastry Flour is the same as cake.  Don’t do what we did and go to a second grocery store because you thought the first hadn’t no cake flour.

• Do not skip the milk soak.  When reading the recipe from Cheryl Day’s Treasury of Southern Baking, applying the milk soak seems almost like an afterthought. It’s one brief sentence that could practically be overlooked entirely by a hasty reader.  Don’t miss it.  I’m telling you — the chocolate milk soak is everything.  Even though it feels like extra work, it is literally so easy to make.  You have no good excuse to skip it!

• I’ve noticed that Cheryl Day has published this cake recipe different times over the years, and some versions seem to have a little tweak.  One incorporates cinnamon and ganache, for instance.  If you dopull the recipe from Milk Street (where it goes by the sexy name Chocolate-on-Chocolate Three-Layer Cake), just know that the editors have omitted the milk soak. For shame!  Trust me, not them. Do the milk soak!  Here’s the one sentence method for making it, reprinted from Cheryl Day’s Treasury of Southern Baking:

In a small saucepan, combine 1 cup (237 ml) whole milk and 1½ ounces (43g) finely chopped chocolate (at least 64% cacao) and heat over medium heat, stirring, until the chocolate is completely melted.

• When you brush on the milk soak, give it some time to absorb into the cake.  I was impatient, and so the milk soak acted like an oil slick, causing the frosting the slide about.  It was ultimately fine — in time everything came together as one — but cake decorating was a little tricky and the layers on those initial slices were a bit slippy-slidey.

• So, frosting.  Cheryl Day’s Treasury of Southern Baking calls for a Chocolate Butter Roux frosting, which we were psyched to try out.  But then we saw the recipe uses granulated sugar instead of confectioners.  Was that right?  Was it a typo?  Turns out there was no typo — the roux frosting does in fact require granulated sugar.  But at that point, we were fearful of botching the frosting and eager to eat; so, we opted for the more familiar chocolate buttercream listed on the Milk Street website. It was easy and delicious.  Highly recommend.  Just fyi: the recipe calls for salted butter.  We had unsalted; so we seasoned with kosher salt as we went along. I may have slightly overdone it, but I liked the salty element, especially as a counterpoint to the bittersweet qualities of the cake.

Now that I’ve given you all the tips for success, let me give you some alternate recipes in case this cake seems too daunting (which it shouldn’t be):

Beatty’s Chocolate Cake by Ina Garten

I’ve actually only made this cake once, and it was great, but for some reason I never made it again.  Anyway, it’s legendary; so, go knock yourself out.

Fudgy Chocolate Cake with Fluffy Chocolate Frosting by Yossy Arefi

Simple, easy, fast — here’s a great way to make chocolate cake on the fly. I love a snacking cake.

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake by Daisy

Years ago I held a contest on my old blog asking for the best cake recipes.  This one landed second place. The use of sour cream in the batter (much like the Chocolate Church Cake itself) was fun, but sour cream in the frosting too?  Triumphant.

Mocha Blackout Cake by Aida Mollenkamp

Another recipe I’ve only made once, but it has lingered with me for many years. This cake uses a pudding-based frosting, which is all I really need to say.

Chocolate-Caramel Layer Cake by Lan Lam

The staff at Cook’s Illustrated tests their recipes to the nth degree, and this cake is no exception. It’s as involved as the Chocolate Church Cake, which means you should probably just make the Chocolate Church Cake, but if are looking for a caramel experience, this recipe is great.

Bombe Aux Trois Chocolats by Julia Child

There’s no good reason for this cake to be on this list as it’s significantly more time-consuming than the Chocolate Church Cake.  It literally requires stencils and finicky egg whites and gelatin and special assembly.  But… BUT… it’s also deeply special and delicious. The Bombe Aux Trois Chocolats is closer to a mousse with brownie structure than it is a chocolate cake, but I’m mentioning it here because it’s excellent, and people need to know about it.  I made it in 2009 (!) and documented the painstaking process here.

What’s your favorite chocolate cake recipe?