Chocolate Joy Cake with Mocha Frosting
If you have the time and will to open up a box of cake mix then you have the skills it takes to make a cake. It pains me when people are impressed beyond expression at the fact that you have managed to make a cake from scratch; it begets this idea that it’s hard—that it’s a professional level skill. This is exacerbated by the fact that we see these insane cakes on the internet: they’re two feet tall and painted like unicorns and footballs and they all have perfectly straight sides and right angles.
Who cares if your cake looks like that? A cake is to eat, to be looked at is its secondary function. And even so, I still want my cake to look like a food, not a unicorn. Don’t confuse those unnaturally colored edible sculptures with the value of a simple homemade cake decorated with a few swoops of frosting and your mother’s love. I will ten times out of ten eat a cake that looks like my mom made it over a cake that looks professionally made. The odds are, and I am serious, the homemade cake loses the beauty contest but wins in flavor every time.
I most recently made this cake for both of my parent’s birthdays; my mother’s a few days before Christmas and my father’s a few weeks later. Being that my parents are divorced I tried to gloss over the fact that I had also made it for Mom’s birthday when describing the cake to my dad. I just had to have it again. Selfish— I know.
This was the cake I used to make with my great grandmother when I was a kid. “chocolate joy cake with mocha frosting” she always called it. Using just an electric beater, a mixing bowl, and wooden spoon we would make this cake, the beaters so old you could smell the motor struggling. There wasn’t always a party; it might have been just a few of us in a room lit by birthday candles belting “Happy birthday” as best we could in three part harmony. I come from a family of not only amazing cooks but also beautiful voices. Bama was the only one who couldn’t sing; a was a self proclaimed tone deaf. This was in stark contrast to a husband who was a novice opera singer, who would rattle the entire house with his preferred records, insisting it wasn’t loud enough until you could physically feel the music reverberating through your very being.
Chocolate Joy Cake is everything it’s cracked up to be. It’s a light chocolate cake, almost fluffy in texture, and I’ll admit to eating large amounts of mocha frosting straight out of the bowl. I actually adore original Betty Crocker recipes. I love how old fashioned they are. This cake recipe doesn’t even call for vanilla. The cakes are smaller and simpler than a lot of cake recipes you find today; only two or three small layers tall. I don’t care for a 5 layer cake with enormous stripes of frosting. I’m not a glutton for sugar and I don’t particularly care how perfect my cake looks. This is a homey cake— normal sized, unpretentious in every way. But a really, really good cake, no less.
Chocolate Joy Cake
from Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook
Serves about 8
Total time: About 1 hour, Active time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
1/2 cup hot water (just boiled)
3 oz unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs at room temperature
2 1/8 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
Method:
Preheat your oven to 350 ° F
Combine the unsweetened chocolate with the hot water. Let stand for a few minutes and then stir to combine until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is thick. Set aside and let cool completely.
Combine flour, soda, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Give it a quick stir with a whisk to evenly distribute the leaveners and give a sifted effect. Set aside
In a new bowl (or the bowl of a standing mixer) cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition.
Add the cooled chocolate mixture, mix until well combined.
With your mixer on low speed, or gently, by hand, stir in the dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk. Begin and end with the dry ingredients.
Pour batter into three 8 inch or two 9 inch round cake pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the cakes are springy to the touch and/ or a cake tester inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Mocha Frosting
Total time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
2/3 cup butter
1 heaping tablespoon cocoa powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
6 tbsp strong coffee cooled to room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
5-6 cups powdered sugar
A pinch of salt if your butter is not salted (yes, go ahead and use salted butter)
Method:
Beat butter until light and creamy, about 3 minutes.
Add 1 cup of powdered sugar and beat until well combined and fluffy.
Add another cup and beat until well combined. Add cinnamon, vanilla, cocoa powder, and coffee along with 3 more cups of powdered sugar. Beat until creamy, light, and spreadable.
Test for texture. Add an additional 1/2 cup- 1 cup of powdered sugar if your frosting is too loose. Add an additional tbsp of coffee if your frosting is too stiff.
