Chocolate Layer Cake
For the Icing:
- 3 cups sugar
- 3 ½ blocks of unsweetened baking chocolate
- 2 5oz. cans evaporated milk
- ½ cup of butter
- 1 tsp vanilla
(I add a little more sugar and a bit of cocoa powder to make it extra chocolate for a friend who just can’t ever get enough chocolate. Lol! So once you’ve made this a time or two…you can play with how sweet and how much chocolate to suit your taste)
For the Cake:
- 1 cup butter
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 6 eggs
- 3 ½ cups self-rising flour
- 1 ¾ cups water
- 1 tsp vanilla
- Solid shortening for greasing the pans
Instructions:
- Start with everything at room temperature. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 8” or 9” cake pans.
- Make the Icing:
- Add everything at once to a heavy-bottomed pot.
- Stir.
- Cook over medium-low heat until sugar is completely dissolved and no grainy texture remains.
- Stir often and do not let boil.
- Make the Batter:
- Cream together butter and sugar.
- Add eggs one at a time. Beat well.
- Add flour and water alternately, beginning and ending with flour.
- Mix in vanilla.
- Pour approximately ¾ cup batter into each well-greased pan. Smooth to edges.
- Bake until layers are barely golden on top.
- Remove from oven and turn out on cooling racks.
- Clean pans, grease well and repeat baking.
- Assemble the Cake:
- Start frosting when the first batch of layers is done.
Cover a still-warm layer with a cardboard round that has been placed on top of a cooling rack inside a baking sheet. - Over the layer, spread ¼ cup of frosting. Layer the next on top and keep going.
- Spoon any leftover frosting over the top and sides after stacking and decorating every layer.
- Return the icing to very low heat and stir until it regains spreading consistency if it thickens.
- Start frosting when the first batch of layers is done.
Tips:
- Cook as many layers at a time as your oven will hold without the pans touching.
- Cover your cardboard round with tinfoil. Scoop up the extra icing as it pools around the bottom and return it to the pot.
