Third attempt (to bake): "Ever so rich" Chocolate Cake

I really have a strong desire to make a great chocolate cake (partly because I want to make a great chocolate cake and partly due to the fact that I'm trying to make something wonderfully chocolate-y for my friend Beth).

I decided to google to get this recipe: "Ever so rich chocolate cake" from www.cooks.com
I really like how their recipes appear simple. This one is really simple - I'm realizing that could be a good or bad thing.

The delightful roster:

1 stick butter (used unsalted and room temperature)
1 cup sugar
1 cup self rising flour (contains salt and baking powder)
4 eggs
16 oz. chocolate syrup (which I realized when I bought it - had high fructose corn syrup, my mortal/immortal? enemy)
1 teaspoon vanilla

I can't say worse things about high fructose corn syrup, and it makes me really sad that Hersey's would use it to make a syrup for me. I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to it, but I won't go into an anaphylactic reaction, so since I had committed to this simple recipe prior to seeing the label, I decided to continue making it. I don't think anyone else will have a problem with it.

What I want to know, is how did Hersey's make chocolate syrup before the creation of high fructose corn syrup (which I will now refer to as: "hfcs"). I'm under the clear understanding that hfcs was made in the seventies as a means to make foods sweeter, taste better, increase shelf life, and create generations of people who are addicted to junk food. I could talk about this more, but I'll spread it out throughout the blogs.

Okay! Back to the cake people!

The directions on cooks.com reads: "mix first 6 ingredients; bake in sheet pan at 325 degrees until done."

This wasn't good enough for me. So:

1. Creamed the butter and sugar together in the mixer. For some reason I thought it would be a great idea to use the whisk attachment - and it looked good at that moment.
2. Added eggs - and continued to use the whisk attachment... uh-oh. Do not do that unless you want whipped butter, sugar with eggs. I swiftly changed it to the flat beater attachment. Things started looking more normal - not all bubbly.
3. Added vanilla, then the chocolate syrup.
Side note: I kept most of my mixing speeds below 6.
5. I added the self-rising flour 1/4 cup at a time and mixed well.
6. The batter looks good - really "normal" looking... like not to thin, not too thick "normal."
7. My next step was to do "325 degrees until done." Honestly, this is a complete guessing game for me. I kept a close watch on the cake. I baked for 20 minutes, and checked every 5 minutes after that by sticking a knife in random areas hoping nothing would stick (ie: done baking).



Looks good so far! The cake was only a little puffy in the middle. Instead of using my handy cake leveler, all I did was wet a clean kitchen cloth and press the puffy part in the middle down. It's a really flat cake now! I don't think I have to take anything off the top to make it flat... because it's really really flat.

Tomorrow I'm going to make fondant out of marshmallows... I will then use that fondant on top of this chocolate cake and make a marvelous creation.