Start with two, yes, two boxes of store bought, store brand dark chocolate cake mix. You know, the kind that say just add oil water and an egg. Don’t spend a ton on them. The ingredients are essentially the same. You’re paying for the name on the box.
Now, here’s my hack.
Empty the boxes into a big bowl. Add two heaping Tbsp of unsweetened baking cocoa powder. Stir it into the dry cake mix.
Measure the amount of water it calls for on ONE box. Heat this water in the microwave about 2 minutes. Now add two heaping Tbsp instant coffee or instant espresso. Stir until dissolved. Don’t worry, you’re not going to drink this…LOL. Add the same amount of plain cold water to your coffee mixture and put this in the fridge until it cools down to just below room temp. Hot liquid makes lumps. You don’t want those. Next, stir your cooled coffee mixture into the dry cake mix.
Next hack, instead of vegetable oil, use coconut oil. Heat some coconut oil gently by placing your coconut oil container in a pan of hot water. When it becomes liquid (and it will at 76 degrees F) measure out the amount the boxes call for. Stir this into the mix. Crack eggs into a small ramekin to prevent any stray bits of shell. Scramble loosely with a fork and stir into the batter. Stir in a small dash of good vanilla.
I always butter my pans and cut a round out of parchment and butter then place it in the bottom of the pan to ensure good release. Divide batter into two round pans and bake as directed on the box. Cool completely before frosting. Once cooled, frost with whatever tickles your fancy. One of my favorite tricks is to use seedless mixed berry jam between the layers and frost with a white buttercream frosting. The sky is the limit as far as creative directions you can go.
A couple of notes : If you’re feeding this to children and you have to be around them afterwards, birthday for example, either use plain water or decaf instead of regular coffee. Booze bakes out. Caffeine doesn’t.
To mix it up a little for grown ups, stir a healthy dash of powdered cayenne pepper to the dry mix along with the baking cocoa. You can also mix a bit of your favorite liquor to the frosting. Grand Marnier, Kahlua, Bourbon….you get the idea. Woohoo!
Make it yours and own it :)” Yum Yum!
If anyone is willing to try this let me know how it turns out. Personally, I’ve never made a chocolate cake, but if I do I’m going to follow this recipe with the coffee and maybe a bit of kahlua in the frosting. What do you think? Too much coffee?
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