Simple and quick cake to bake

This is my favourite cake. It's extremely easy to make and it's always moist and delicious.

 Easy Chocolate Buttermilk Cake (from The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, 2001)

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

White Chocolate Butter Frosting or desired frosting

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans or 10-inch Bundt pan. Dust pans with cocoa

2. In large bowl, combine flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, and salt.

3. In medium bowl, with wire whisk, mix buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla until blended. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture and whisk until smooth.

4. Divide batter between prepared layers or pour into Bundt pan; spread evenly. Bake until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean, about 30 minutes for 9-inch layers or about 40 minutes for Bundt cake. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Run thin knife around layers to loosen from side of pan. Or, if using Bundt pan, run tip of knife around edge of cake to loosen. Invert onto racks to cool completely.

5. Meanwhile, prepare White Chocolate Butter Frosting. Place one layer, rounded side down, on cake plate. With narrow metal spatula, spread 2/3 cup frosting over layer. Top with second layer, rounded side up. Spread remaining frosting over side and top of cake. Makes 16 servings.

White Chocolate Butter Frosting

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups confectioners' sugar

6 ounces white chocolate, melted and cooled

3 tablespoons milkIn large bowl, with mixer at low speed, beat butter, confectioners' sugar, white chocolate, and milk just until combined. Increase speed to high; beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes, frequently scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Makes about 3 1/2 cups. 

Some comments:

I find it too salty with the amount of salt it calls for, so I usually only use 1/2 tsp.

You can make it with soured milk, soured soymilk, or yogurt instead of the buttermilk.

I always sift the cocoa and flour together as I find the cocoa clumps.

It can be a bit tricky to get out of the pans. I recommend lining the bottom of flat pans with parchment paper cut to fit, and greasing and flouring (or cocoaing) the sides and corners very well, or generously using a store-bought or homemade baking spray. You can sprinkle cocoa over the baking spray if you don't want the white flour showing on the dark cake.

This cake is good without icing, but the included icing recipe is also very good. Regular chocolate instead of white works too, but I have never had any success with white chocolate chips. They don't melt properly. If you want a truly chocolatey icing, you should also add a bit of cocoa powder to it. I also never add any milk to the icing as I find it's plenty spreadable without it. In fact I sometimes have to add extra icing sugar to stiffen it up.

This recipe also works well in a 13"x9" pan, or it makes 24 cupcakes (use paper liners, and only bake them for about 20 minutes.)

Look up wacky cake recipes. Very easy and definitely foolproof. They are generally vinegar/baking soda based for leavening. They come in ALL flavors-choclate,lemon,vanilla,ginger,etc etc. My fav is chocolate.  An added benfit is they are egg and dairy free. That was the reason I started making this cake. I had an allergic familly member.

Have delicious fun!