The Perfect Chocolate Cake

First, the ingredients.

· 2 cups white sugar

· 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

· ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

· 1 ½ teaspoons of baking soda

· 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder

· 1 teaspoon of salt

· 2 eggs

· 1 cup of milk

· ½ cup of vegetable oil

· 2 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

· 1 cup of boiling water

I recommend setting out your ingredients, this will make adding the ingredients easier and less of a chance for an error when measuring. I would suggest you preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, but if you think your oven may cook differently, then get an oven thermometer and check it out. This recipe also calls for 2 9-inch round cake pans. Grease and flour the cake pans.

The first thing I usually do is cream together the sugar and the oil. Then add in one egg and cream it together with the oil/sugar mix. Mix in the second egg and just cream them together until there are not any traces of egg left. Then add the vanilla and just mix a little. (This recipe originally calls for only 2 teaspoons of vanilla, but I love the flavor that vanilla gives the cake so I always add a little bit more.)

Next, sift the baking soda, flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder together into a separate bowl and add the salt. Slowly pour dry ingredients to wet mixture. Then add the milk. After the ingredients are all added, beat on a low-medium speed for about 1 more minute. After this, slowly stir in the boiling water until combined.

Pour the batter into your two prepared pans. (Yes, I do just eyeball this because I have done it so many times.) If you do want to measure, I would recommend you pour the batter into a cup measurer and then pour half of the batter from the measuring cup into the first cake pan and the rest into the other.

Put your cake into the oven at 350 degrees F for most ovens for 30 to 35 minutes. I usually do closer to 30, just so I don't over bake the cake.

At 30 minutes, I would check on the cake to see how done it is. My best way to do this is by inserting a tooth-pick and making sure it comes out clean.

When cooling your cake, I recommend you leave it in the pan and put the pan on a wire cooling rack for about 15-20 minutes. I take a butter knife and go around the edge of the cake before taking it out of the pan. Then, place a plate on the top of the cake and quickly flip the pan onto the plate and tap lightly to get the cake out of the pan. Let the cake cool for a while before trying to frost it (or just eat it plain, because that is yummy too!).

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