For my second creation I wanted to bake a cake as a surprise dessert for my family. I found one of the easier recipes for a
Chocolate Buttermilk Cake. Yum! According to the book the prep time is 20 minutes, it cooks for 40 minutes, and it serves 8 to 12 people. Since the serving amount is so large I decided to halve the ingredients so that it make enough for 4 to 6 instead.
The ingredients are as follows:
1 stick softened butter, 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs, 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 cup packed unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, and 3/4 cup buttermilk.
Before I began prepping I preheated the oven to 350 degrees and greased a 9-inch cake pan. Then I beat together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer for around 2 minutes until the mixture was light and fluffy. Then I beat in the 2 eggs for around 30 seconds. Then I sifted together the cake flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Once they were combined I added this mixture to the butter mixture while adding the buttermilk and flour. Once all of the ingredients were together I used the electric mixer on medium speed just until it was well blended, around 2 minutes.
After pouring the mixture into the pan I put the cake in the oven and set the timer for 40 minutes. To be sure it was done I inserted a toothpick and it came out clean with no batter/cake on it. The cake cooled for ten minutes and then voila, ready to eat!
Ease of prep: 4/5 I had to go to the grocery store to pick up buttermilk because it isn't a staple in our house, but other than that I had the other ingredients on hand. The prep time was also pretty accurate, it took around 13 minutes to prepare.
Taste: 2.5/5 I'm sure my baking skills contribute to this lower score, but the cake wasn't as sweet as I assumed it would be, and it was fairly dry as well. Hopefully the icing will help!
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To create the icing I needed all of the same ingredients that were needed for the cake, so it was great to have the ingredients close at hand.
The recipe called for:
Ease of prep: 5/5 I had all the ingredients on hand, plus it only took 3-5 minutes to make and then ice the buttermilk cake.
Taste: 4/5 the icing was very sweet, so it brought a much better flavor to the buttermilk cake. On its own the icing isn't very amazing or special, but tied with the cake it greatly improves the overall taste.
